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Stranger than Fiction

Mugabe’s widow charged five cows for inappropriate burial of former president

Published:Thursday | May 27, 2021 | 3:37 AMA Digital Integration & Marketing production, BANG Bizarre
From left: Late Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace.

Robert Mugabe's widow has been fined five cows and two goats because of the way she buried her husband.

A traditional court, which can't formally punish the accused but whose decisions have a strong symbolic impact, met last week to settle on the punishment for Grace Mugabe.

The former first lady is charged with burying Zimbabwe's former president - who died at the age of 95 in 2019 - on the grounds of his home in Kutama when his family were supposed to have chosen where he should be laid to rest.

Chief Zvimba has claimed that Mugabe should have been buried in a plot selected by his mother or immediate family and has called for the body to be exhumed and reburied according to custom.

There had previously been a dispute over Mugabe's final resting place between Grace and president Emmerson Mnangagwa. The politician wanted Mugabe to be buried in the National Heroes Acre while Grace wanted her husband interred in his hometown.


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