admin
Senior Court Reporter
Marry Mubaiwa yesterday produced in court a letter from her doctors indicating that she might be admitted into a hospital while receiving treatment for her ailment, prompting her trial on attempted murder charges to be deferred to next week.
Mubaiwa, who was married to Vice President Constantino Chiwenga at the time, is alleged to have attempted to take his life by removing a medical intravenous set and a catheter when he was hospitalised in South Africa.
Her lawyer Ms Beatrice Mtetwa yesterday asked Harare regional magistrate Mrs Feresi Chakanyuka to postpone the matter to February 27 to allow Mubaiwa to receive medical treatment.
“If she is admitted it will be impossible for us to know when she will be fit for trial,” she said. “We suggest that a week from Monday to February 27 will do in the hope that she will be fit to go through the rigours of the trial.”
The State led by Mr Lancelot Mutsokoti and Mr Ephraim Zinyandu agreed to the postponement, saying a week was a reasonable time to allow Mubaiwa to recover.
On Thursday, Mubaiwa vomited while in the dock.
It is the State’s allegations that Mubaiwa entered the hospital where VP Chiwenga was admitted.
The court heard that she then unlawfully removed the Vice President’s medical intravenous giving set as well as a catheter from him, resulting in him bleeding profusely.
It is further alleged that she forced him off the bed, held his hand, and moved him out of the ward.
The State alleges that Mubaiwa was intercepted by security personnel she had initially locked out of the room prior to the incident.
Security personnel are said to have called the hospital staff to reconnect the medical equipment she had allegedly unlawfully removed.
The Vice President was successfully resuscitated, with Mubaiwa said to have disappeared from the hospital. It is the State’s case that prior to his admission in hospital, Mubaiwa detained VP Chiwenga at a hotel in Pretoria and denied him medical attention.
Her actions prompted his security team to force their way into the hotel and take him to hospital.
Upon his re-admission, VP Chiwenga had the two medical instruments inserted and was placed under 24-hour monitoring by the doctors and his security personnel as he was helpless, the court heard.
Online Reporter