South Africa arrests Mugabe’s son for unrelated offenses after employee shot at family home | Robert Mugabe

Two months after an employee was shot in the back at the Mugabe family home in a wealthy suburb of Johannesburg, a South African court has fined and ordered the deportation of Robert Mugabe’s youngest son on two unrelated charges.

Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe (28) and his cousin Tobias Mugabe Matonhodze (33) were initially both charged with attempted murder after the incident on 19 February.

Matonhodze pleaded guilty earlier this month to attempted murder, firearms offences, defeating the law – as the gun was never found – and breaching immigration law. He was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday.

Mugabe was ordered to pay a fine of 400,000 rand (£17,851) for pointing a toy gun in a manner likely to be seen as a real firearm, over a separate incident in 2023. He was also fined 200,000 rand (£8,919.50) for breaching immigration law. He pleaded guilty to both offences. The judge ordered the police to take him to Johannesburg’s international airport to be deported Zimbabwe.

Magistrate Renier Boshoff told Mugabe: “I don’t know if the second accused took the rap for you, and I can only respond to what is in front of me.”

The magistrate said the sentences were mitigated by the two men pleading guilty to the offences, the time they had spent in prison since the shooting on February 19, and because the victim, 23-year-old Sipho Mahlangu, wanted to withdraw the charges after being paid off by Mugabe and Matonhodze. Prosecutors asked for long prison terms for both men.

Investigating officer Raj Ramchunder told sentencing on April 24 that Mahlangu was paid 250,000 rand (£11,150), with a further 150,000 (£6,690) promised.

Robert Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe for almost 40 years, initially as a hero, after ending white minority rule in Zimbabwe. His rule became authoritarian, and he presided over hyperinflation and economic collapse. He was deposed in a coup in 2017 and died two years later 95 years old.

Mugabe and his older brother, Robert Junior (34), became notorious in the 2010s for sharing their lavish lifestyle online.

In 2017, their mother, Grace Mugabe, avoided a court case in South Africa by invoking diplomatic immunity. The model Gabriella Engels accused the former first lady of it hit her with an electric cable until she bled.

The magistrate said he also took into account the fact that Mugabe and his cousin were first time offenders. Mugabe has previously been in trouble with authorities in Zimbabwe.

According to Zimbabwean media reports, he was in 2024 arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer at a roadblock. In June last year he was arrested and danced for allegedly assaulting a security guard at a gold mine. It was not immediately clear what the status of these two cases was.