Chinhoyi magistrate Kudzanai Mahaso has granted village head Tinos Manongovere his request to have an inspection in loco at the place where the late former President Robert Mugabe’s remains were set for burial at National Heroes Acre in Harare and the family cemetery in Zvimba, where he was interred.
Mahaso said the inspection in loco would be done at the Mugabe cemetery in Zvimba and in Harare today.
The former First Family’s lawyer Kudzanai Gombiro confirmed the determination which was made at the Chinhoyi Magistrates Court yesterday.
“Yes, Manongovere requested to show the court places where Mugabe family members are buried in Zvimba and a place they wanted him buried at Heroes Acre and the request was granted by the magistrate. We are going to the two places tomorrow,” he said.
Manongovere dragged Mugabe’s widow, Grace, to Chief Zvimba, born Stanley Wurayayi Mhondoro’s traditional court, saying the late Zimbabwean leader was not buried according to their tradition and should be exhumed and reburied at the National Heroes Acre.
Chief Zvimba ordered Grace to exhume the former President’s remains from their Kutama homestead and rebury them at the National Heroes Acre, where the government had constructed a mausoleum for the late strongman.
A magistrate court in September 2021 confirmed Chief Zvimba’s ruling after Mugabe’s children had challenged the traditional leader’s controversial ruling.
They argued that he acted outside his jurisdiction when he found Grace guilty of violating tradition by burying Mugabe at his homestead.
She was ordered to facilitate Mugabe’s exhumation for reburial at a national shrine for luminaries of the country’s 1970s liberation war.
Grace was fined five cows and two goats.
Mugabe died in September 2019 at age 95 and was buried at Kutama despite vigorous attempts by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration to have him interred at the National Heroes Acres in Harare, where most nationalists are buried.
Following his death in Singapore in 2019, a stand-off ensued between the government and his family over his final resting place, stretching for nearly three weeks.
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