Police in Hong Kong are investigating whether two bodyguards protecting the Zimbabwean president’s daughter, Bona Mugabe, were working illegally on tourist visas.
Zimbabweans Mapfumo Marks and his female colleague Manyaira Reliance Pepukai,were spared prosecution for their alleged Feb. 13 assault of two newspaper photographers outside a house where Robert Mugabe’s daughter lives while studying in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Director of Public Prosecutions Grenville Cross defended the Department of Justice’s decision not to prosecute, saying bodyguards acted as they did because they were “genuinely apprehensive for the safety of Miss Mugabe.”
However, sources close the investigation said the bodyguards were both on three-month visitor visas that made it illegal for them to work in Hong Kong. Working on a tourist visa is punishable by up to two years in jail. An investigation has been ordered.
Both bodyguards returned to Zimbabwe when their visas expired. They have since been replaced by two different bodyguards who are understood to also be on visitor visas while protecting 20-year-old Bona Mugabe.
The development reignited a controversy over the Mugabe family’s treatment in Hong Kong. Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace, was granted diplomatic immunity over an alleged assault on another photographer who took pictures of her shopping in January.
Tim O’Rourke, one of the two photographers allegedly assaulted by the bodyguards, said: “I find it absolutely extraordinary that no one checked on their visa status. All they had to do was look at their passports.”
Lawyer Michael Vidler, who represents the photographers, said the case was particularly disturbing after the case involving Grace Mugabe.
“The whole Mugabe saga is sending out a very negative message about Hong Kong to the rest of the world,” he said. “It is adversely affecting our reputation as a place that is safe to live and where the law is applied equally, irrespective of who you are or how powerful your connections.”
A justice department spokeswoman confirmed the visa case had been passed back to police to investigate but insisted their visa status would not have affected the decision not to prosecute.
A police spokeswoman refused to say if police had checked the visa status of the two bodyguards, saying: “The immigration status of the two persons concerned was not the focus of the investigation.”
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Myanmar yesterday published a parliamentary bill proposing the death sentence for those who detain or violently coerce people into working in online scam centers. Internet fraud factories have flourished in Myanmar, part of Southeast Asia’s scam economy, targeting Internet users worldwide with romance and cryptocurrency investment cons. The multibillion-dollar black market attracts many willing employees, but repatriated foreigners have also reported being trafficked to sites in Myanmar and tortured by scam center operators. The draft legislation would allow capital punishment for “violence, torture, unlawful arrest and detention, or cruel treatment against another person for the purpose of forcing them to commit online scams.” The
RSS