A South African court has ordered the youngest son of Zimbabwe’s late former president, Robert Mugabe, to pay a fine and face deportation following his conviction on charges of pointing a toy gun at a person and violating the country’s immigration laws.
Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe, believed to be in his late 20s, entered a guilty plea as part of a negotiated settlement with prosecutors at the Alexandra Magistrate’s Court in Johannesburg.
He was fined 400,000 rand (approximately $24,100) for the toy gun incident and an additional 200,000 rand for breaching South Africa’s immigration regulations. He will be deported upon conclusion of the legal process.
Mugabe and a co-accused, Tobias Matonhodze, had been in custody since their arrest in February, following an incident at a Johannesburg mansion where a worker was shot and wounded. While Mugabe’s guilty plea relates to a separate toy gun incident, Matonhodze pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of the worker along with other charges. He was sentenced to three years in prison and will also be deported upon completing his sentence.
The court heard that the worker, who sustained two gunshot wounds to the back, received a compensation settlement of 250,000 rand, with a further 150,000 rand payment still outstanding. The firearm used in the shooting remains missing.
Robert Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years following the country’s independence from Britain in 1980. He was removed from power in a military coup in 2017 and died two years later at a hospital in Singapore at the age of 95.