Mugabe's son fined Sh4.7 million, deported from South Africa over gun incident

A South African court has ordered the youngest son of Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe to pay a hefty fine and be deported for pointing a toy gun at someone and violating immigration laws.

Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe, along with another man believed to be his cousin, was arrested in February after a worker was shot and wounded at a mansion in Johannesburg where he was staying.

Bellarmine pleaded guilty earlier this month to pointing a firearm and being in the country illegally, following the shooting of a 23-year-old man at his residence.

According to BBC, the court has now fined him Sh3.1 million for pointing a toy gun in a manner likely to be perceived as a real firearm, linked to a separate 2023 incident.

He was also fined Sh1.6 million for breaching immigration laws, having pleaded guilty to both offences.

The judge ordered police to escort him to Johannesburg’s international airport for deportation to Zimbabwe.

His co-accused and cousin, Tobias Matonhodze, 33, pleaded guilty to attempted murder, illegal immigration, possession of ammunition and defeating the ends of justice. He was sentenced to three years in prison, according to The Guardian.

Both men were arrested on February 19 after police were called to Mugabe’s home in the upscale Johannesburg suburb of Hyde Park.

In 2024, Bellarmine was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer in the Zimbabwean border town of Beitbridge, according to BBC. He was released on bail, but a warrant was later issued after he failed to appear in court, Zimbabwe’s state-run The Herald reported at the time.

The following year, he was arrested again for allegedly assaulting a security guard at a mining site in Mazowe, about an hour’s drive north of Harare. That case remains ongoing.

Bellarmine Mugabe is one of two sons Robert Mugabe had with his second wife, Grace Mugabe.

Robert Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years after independence from Britain in 1980. He was ousted in a military coup in 2017 and died in 2019 at a hospital in Singapore at the age of 95.