THE GENERAL & THE BEAUTY QUEEN

Zimbabwe’s vice president has accused his wife of trying to kill him – but she says she’s being used as a warning not to take on those in power

- DENNIS CAVERNELIS

SHE’s a former pageant queen and music video star, an elegant beauty with a love of good clothes and the finer things in life. He’s a top general and powerful politician who led the coup that ended Robert Mugabe’s reign.

And together they’re responsible for one of the most sensational cases to come out of Zimbabwe in a long time.

Allegations of attempted murder, money laundering and falsifying her marriage certificate have been levelled against the general’s wife.

Meanwhile, her much-older husband has been accused of forcing her hand in divorce proceedings and using her as an example to dissident Zimbabweans: take on powerful figures at your peril.

The details emerging are nothing short of gobsmacking. Marry Mubaiwa (38) has been accused of plotting to kill her husband, General Constantino Chiwenga (63), once a top Mugabe lieutenant and now vice president of the poverty-stricken southern African state.

Chiwenga allegedly retaliated by having police drag Mubaiwa, the mother of his three young children, naked from the bathtub of their palatial home in Borrowdale, the richest neighbourhood in Harare.

She was arrested last month and spent Christmas and New Year’s eve in Zimbabwe’s crumbling Chikurubi Prison outside the capital. She was eventually released on bail of 50 000 Zim dollars (R1 985).

None of the accusations against her are true, protested the beauty, who featured in Lucky Dube’s hit Put Back a Little Love. Instead, she claims, she’s the one being persecuted.

THE drama began in July last year when Chiwenga was airlifted to Pretoria for emergency medical treatment for a constricted oesophagus.