(Reuters) - South Africa has granted diplomatic immunity to
Zimbabwe's first lady, Grace Mugabe, allowing her to return to Harare and avoid
prosecution for the alleged assault of a 20-year-old model, a security source
said on Friday.
South African police had put border posts on "red
alert" to prevent Mugabe fleeing and indicated she would receive no
special treatment in the case involving Gabriella Engels, who says Mugabe
whipped her with an electric extension cable.
A security source, however, said immunity had been granted.
The source also said Grace Mugabe had failed to turn up at a Johannesburg court
hearing on Tuesday, as agreed with police, because of concerns she could be
attacked.
The alleged assault -- Engels said it occurred on Sunday
evening as she waited with two friends in a luxury Johannesburg hotel suite to
meet one of Mugabe's adult sons -- is a diplomatic nightmare for South Africa.
The country has a difficult relationship with its northern
neighbor. It is home to an estimated three million Zimbabwean exiles who regard
President Robert Mugabe as a dictator who has ruined what was once one of
Africa's most promising democracies.
But although he is also widely reviled in the West, Mugabe
is still seen by many Africans as the continent's elder statesman and a hero of
its anti-colonial struggles.
A senior government source said on Friday there was
"no way" Grace Mugabe, 52, would be arrested because of the
diplomatic fallout that would ensue from Zimbabwe.
Indeed, the 93-year old president himself arrived two days
early in Pretoria for a regional southern African summit this week to help
resolve his wife's legal problems.
The government source accepted the view widely held by
legal experts that Grace Mugabe was not entitled to immunity because she was in
South Africa for medical treatment, and said the government was expecting her
immunity to be challenged in court.
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