Acting President Constantino Chiwenga’s estranged wife,
Marry Mubaiwa, gained custody of the couple’s three children on Friday last
week, as part of an initially agreed out-of-court settlement, which was,
however, aborted after the former army chief made a dramatic volte-face on
Monday.
Family sources said there were negotiations between the
Chiwenga and Mubaiwa families for an out-of-court settlement of their nasty
divorce case in which the two are washing dirty linen in public, accusing each
other of violence, drug abuse and witchcraft.The custody of the three minor
children is one of the issues at the centre of the raging divorce case.
Chiwenga last week claimed he took the children out of the
country on holiday in 2019 after he found them highly traumatised by what he
described as his wife’s witchcraft practices.
According to insiders, the two families held negotiations
throughout the day on Friday via an emissary only identified as Mupostori
Shumba, who is said to have been asked to mediate by Chiwenga’s friends, among
them, tycoon Kuda Tagwirei, who do not want their names tarnished in court.
Tagwirei has already been sucked into the matter after
Marry indicated that one of the cars they are wrangling over, a
top-of-the-range Mercedes-Benz S600 sedan, was bought by the fuel mogul.
Mupostori Shumba, sources said, was chosen as the mediator
because he is also well-known to the Mubaiwas.The source said Mupostori Shumba
spent the better part of last Friday shuttling between Chiwenga’s secretive
Borrowdale house, where he has been staying since his return from a complex
medical procedure in China in November last year, and the Mubaiwas.
“He (the madiator) first went to Chiwenga’s new residence
before he met Marry and her family at a house in Newlands. All negotiations
were conducted through him. He practically spent the whole day moving up and
down,” a source said.
“As of Friday night, there was an agreement for an
out-of-court settlement and, as part of that, Chiwenga had agreed to let Marry
have custody of the children which is now the case. Basically, Marry wanted the
general to first withdraw the criminal charges levelled against her and to
agree on a property-sharing plan,” the source said.
“The impression we got from Mupostori Shumba was that
Chiwenga was amenable to that arrangement as well. Marry actually said that it
was not originally in her plans to divorce and say all the nasty things in
public but she felt that since he had started it all, she had to respond in
kind. So at the end of the day everyone thought progress had been made, only
for us to get the shock of our lives when his lawyer on Monday told newspapers
that Chiwenga was itching for a showdown with her in court,” the source added.
“There are suspicions that may have been influenced by some
of his friends between Friday night and Monday to have a change of heart, from
the look of things, which is very unfortunate considering the plight of the
children in the whole drama.”
The source further said the warring parties had even agreed
to allow their lawyers to work on a deed of settlement and finalise it in seven
days.
“The negotiations ended with an agreement to allow lawyers
from both parties to work on a deed of settlement which was supposed to be
deliberated on by both parties over the weekend, but everything now appears to
be in jeopardy,” the source said.
Last week, Marry, who was in the company of her lawyer
Advocate Taona Nyamakura, appeared before High Court judge Justice Christopher
Dube-Banda but the matter was not deliberated on after the parties agreed to
attempt to settle the matter out of court.
Marry is claiming an equivalent of US$40 000 per month as
maintenance for her upkeep and a total of US$7 500 per month for her three
children, which money she said should be paid at the interbank rate.
Besides the claim of monthly maintenance, Marry also said
her husband should be ordered to pay for the family’s holidays, school and
medical expenses and casual clothes, all running into thousands of United
States dollars. Zimbabwe Independent
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