{"id":345734,"date":"2017-08-17T15:30:22","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T15:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=345734"},"modified":"2017-08-17T15:30:22","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T15:30:22","slug":"south-africa-borders-on-red-alert-for-grace-mugabe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=345734","title":{"rendered":"South Africa borders on ‘red alert’ for Grace Mugabe"},"content":{"rendered":"

South African police have issued a “red alert” at the country’s borders for Zimbabwe’s First Lady Grace Mugabe, the police minister has said.<\/p>\n

She is accused of hitting a 20-year-old woman over the head with an extension cord in a hotel room near Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

Police expected Mrs Mugabe, 52, to turn herself in on Tuesday, but she failed to show up.<\/p>\n

The first lady’s whereabouts are not known but she is believed to still be in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is now also in the country ahead of a southern African heads of state meeting due to start on Friday.<\/p>\n

Mrs Mugabe has not commented on the allegation.<\/p>\n

Police Minister Fikile Mbalula said: “We, in terms of South African police, [have] already put tabs on the borders in relation to her leaving the country, so there is no question about that.<\/p>\n

“So tabs have been put, a red alert has been put, so she is not somebody who has been running away.”<\/p>\n

\"GabriellaGabriella Engels alleges that she was assaulted by Grace Mugabe<\/span><\/figure>\n

On Wednesday, South Africa’s police ministry said Zimbabwe’s government had sought diplomatic immunity for Mrs Mugabe.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, South African lawyer Gerrie Nel, who successfully prosecuted Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius, is supporting the woman making the allegation, Gabriella Engels.<\/p>\n

Mr Nel is now working with the Afriforum group, which mainly lobbies for the rights of Afrikaners in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Afriforum said if the police failed to act in the case then it would take up a private prosecution.<\/p>\n

It also said that it would fight any move to grant Mrs Mugabe diplomatic immunity.<\/p>\n

South Africa’s government risks a public backlash if it lets Mrs Mugabe go scot-free.<\/p>\n

This happened in 2015, when it failed to execute an international arrest warrant for Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir who was wanted by the International Criminal Court.<\/p>\n

The government argued that he qualified for diplomatic immunity, but the country’s judges disagreed. The government was then strongly criticised for undermining the rule of law.<\/p>\n

It seems that ministers want to avoid a similar backlash and are therefore insisting that Mrs Mugabe must appear in court.<\/p>\n

But by taking such an approach it risks a diplomatic row with Zimbabwe’s government – a staunch ally whom it has resolutely defended over the years, despite international criticism of President Mugabe’s human rights record.<\/p>\n

So the two governments, including Mr Mugabe and his South African counterpart, Jacob Zuma, are bound to be in talks to resolve the crisis over the first lady.<\/p>\n

One option being mentioned in the South African media is that Mrs Mugabe should plead guilty during a short court appearance, and pay a fine.<\/p>\n

But it is unclear whether Mr and Mrs Mugabe – known for their uncompromising nature – will agree to this, especially after Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party said in a tweet on Tuesday that the first lady had been “attacked”, contradicting her accuser’s version of events.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African police have issued a “red alert” at the country’s borders for Zimbabwe’s First Lady Grace Mugabe, the police minister has said. She is accused of hitting a 20-year-old woman over the head with an extension cord in a hotel room near Johannesburg. Police expected Mrs Mugabe, 52, to turn herself in on Tuesday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-345734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=345734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=345734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=345734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=345734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}