Mugabe's kids win bid to bar headman from inspecting their father's grave

Zim Now Reporter

Bona,  Robert Tinotenda, and Chatunga Mugabe, children of Zimbabwe's late former president Robert Mugabe, have won a legal case preventing a Zvimba headman from inspecting their father’s grave as part of a bid to exhume his remains.

Chinhoyi magistrate Kudzanai Mahaso dismissed the application by Headman Tinos Manongovere, who claimed Mugabe's burial at his Kutama homestead violated Zvimba cultural customs. Manongovere sought an inspection in loco to verify if Mugabe was buried inside a house, contrary to tradition.

Mahaso ruled the application was procedurally flawed, citing the absence of a properly commissioned founding affidavit. He also emphasized that inspections on private property require the owner's consent to safeguard constitutional rights to privacy and property.

“Entering someone’s property without permission amounts to trespass,” Mahaso said, adding that alternative evidence, such as witness testimony, could address the dispute.

Mugabe's burial sparked a dispute when the family of the deposed leader rejected President Emmerson Mnangagwa's hastily contructed mausoleum at the National Heroes Acre and opted to bury their father at his rural home in Zvimba.