Zimbabwe’s First Lady Accused Of Assaulting South African Model With Extension Cord

The 52-year-old Mugabe — wife of Robert Mugabe, the country’s leader of more than three decades — allegedly confronted Gabriella Engels, 20, at a hotel where she had been “chilling” with her friends on Sunday evening. Mugabe’s two 20-something sons, Robert Jr. and Chatunga, had been in another room nearby, Engels told TimesLIVE.

“When Grace entered, I had no idea who she was,” Engels told South Africa’s News24. “She walked in with an extension cord and just started beating me with it. She flipped and just kept beating me with the plug. Over and over. I had no idea what was going on.”

“Her bodyguards just stood back and watched her beat me and my friend,” she told CapeTalk radio station.

Instead, spokesman Vishnu Naidoo told AFP that police are negotiating with the suspect’s lawyers, adding,

“We do not know her whereabouts at this stage.”

Meanwhile Reuters, citing two anonymous Zimbabwe government officials, reports she is already back in Zimbabwe.

 

Engels said that by the time she crawled from the room, “there was blood everywhere — over my arms, in my hair, everywhere.”

It was only after she was escorted to the exit by a security guard that she said she discovered Grace Mugabe’s identity: “I asked him who the woman was because I wanted to lay a case against her.”

“I don’t know how far this case is going to go,”

said Engels, who has shared a photo of a gash on her forehead,

“But I just want my voice to be heard, because what she did really wasn’t right.”

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Mugabe’s 93-year-old husband is currently the world’s oldest sitting president — and one of its longest-serving heads of state. The nonagenarian and his governing ZANU-PF party, which have been accused of presiding over a corrupt and repressive regime, have led Zimbabwe since the country gained its independence from the U.K. in 1980.

 

But at the moment, the more pressing issue appears to be that officials don’t even know where she is.

Zimbabwe’s first lady failed to turn herself in to South African authorities Tuesday, apparently evading accusations that she beat a South African model and her friend with an extension cord over the weekend – now police are struggling to explain where, exactly, their suspect went.

“It just didn’t materialise as it was supposed to,” Police spokesman, Naidoo told AFP, referring to mistaken reports of Mugabe’s cooperation. “As long as we don’t have a suspect in custody, we cannot say when they will appear in court.”