Mugabe To Sue Newspapers Over Grace Affair Reports

I would think that Mugabe is furious - furious that the Press should have got hold of a story like this - but also because his wife’s dalliances are now in the public eye. Sure, she can deny the affair, but her historical detours make the denial hard to believe.

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"Robert Mugabe was on Monday said to be preparing to take an unprecedented step to sue both the British and South African Sunday Times newspapers following damaging claims that his wife, Grace, was having and affair with Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono.

Gono, the First Lady and a retired Air Force official named in stories published on Sunday would join in the action, a source said.

Both Gono, 51, and Grace, nee Marufu, 45, strongly deny having an affair, and according to a mutual friend of the pair, 'they are ready to go to war' with the Sunday Times."

If, as they claim, there is no substance to the story, then why is it necessary for Gono to "go into hiding"?

And the use of the expression ‘join in the action’ could have perhaps have been better couched.

Mugabe's marriage to Grace was borne of an adulterous affair he had with Marufu whilst his first wife, Sally, lay on her deathbed.

Since his marriage to Grace, she has become a detested public figure who is happy to assault photographers and reporters, spends money like it was water, and comes out with the most amazing statements. After the 2008 election, which ZANU PF lost, Grace reportedly told reporters that Tsvangirai will never enter State House.

She also has much to do with the diamond find in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, netting huge amounts of money in her criminal activities.

Grace travels everywhere with her husband and fills aircraft with purchases made all over the world. Upon arrival in Harare, the goods are not subject to customs duty and are quietly moved to their Borrowdale Brook mansion.

Think about it. It would not pay Mugabe, his wife, Grace, or anyone else to admit the affair...

"There is a major meeting planned for Wednesday which will be attended by lawyers and advisers to the President and Gono," the source said. "But be in no doubt, we are going to see one of the biggest libel lawsuits ever because this story is a mendacious hatchet job which should never have been published."

In an e-mail to the media on Monday, the source, who asked not to be named, said The Sunday Times' story was "so sloppy that they lacked the courage to put it in their Zimbabwe edition".

The story, written by Jon Swain and published simultaneously by the South African and British Sunday Times newspapers, alleged Gono and Grace had been having an affair for five years, and had romped in hotels in Malaysia, Cape Town, a South African house owned by retired Air Vice-Marshal Robert Mhlanga and even on a farm owned by the First Lady.

News of the affair, according to the Sunday Times, was broken to Mugabe on July 26 this year by his dying sister, Sabina. Mugabe’s bodyguard, Cain Chademana, was present in the discussion but "mysteriously died... a matter of days later". Citing intelligence sources, the Times said he had been "poisoned under Mugabe's instructions by Mugabe's intelligence men, allegedly employing an undetectable poison".

But source, who said she had been in contact with both Gono and the First Lady since the story broke, said the story was "littered with falsehoods"."

It isn't that the story is 'mendacious' but, given the prime actors, it is wholly and totally believable...

Robb WJ Ellis

The Bearded Man