Government lawyers in Hong Kong were yesterday considering whether to prosecute two bodyguards looking after the daughter of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for alleged assaults.
The Zimbabwean man and woman are accused of assaulting photographers Colin Galloway, 46, and Tim O’Rourke, 45, on Feb. 13 outside a luxury house, where Bona Mugabe is living while on a university course in Hong Kong.
Briton Galloway and American O’Rourke were on assignment for a newspaper investigating the Mugabe family’s links to the Far East when they were allegedly attacked outside the house on the private J.C. Castle development in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district.
The three-story home was reportedly bought in June last year by a middle-man acting on behalf of the 85-year-old Zimbabwean leader and his wife Grace, the Sunday Times newspaper in London reported.
Mugabe later denied he had bought the house, but said he had rented it for his daughter Bona to live in with two friends while she studies at a Hong Kong university.
Hong Kong police questioned a Zimbabwean man and woman about the incident, in which O’Rourke claims he was grabbed by the neck and Galloway says he was gripped and bruised by a man in his 30s. They classified the case as common assault.
A police spokesman said the case had been referred to the Department of Justice for advice and a file on the incident is understood to have been sent to the department in early March.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said: “We are now in the process of finalizing our legal advice and we expect shortly to be in a position to advise the police of our decision.”
The pair were employed as bodyguards to look after Bona Mugabe during her stay in Hong Kong, but were not entitled to diplomatic immunity as they are not consular officials, a police source said.
Officers cautioned the pair after the alleged assault and told them to contact police if they had any plans to leave Hong Kong, a source said.
“Bona Mugabe will be leaving Hong Kong for her summer holidays soon with the two bodyguards, so we believe a Department of Justice decision on whether to charge them with assault must be made soon,” the source said.
The Feb. 13 incident came weeks after Grace Mugabe was accused of repeatedly punching another photographer when he photographed her shopping in Tsimshatsui on Jan. 15.
Hong Kong’s Department of Justice announced in March that the case would go no further as Grace Mugabe, 43, was entitled to diplomatic immunity because of her status as the president’s wife.
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