A Chinhoyi magistrate on Friday dismissed an appeal by the family of Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe against a traditional court ruling ordering the exhumation of the former president Robert Mugabe’s remains.
Early this year, Chief Zvimba ruled that Mugabe’s remains must be exhumed from his rural home where he was buried for reburial at the National Heroes Acre in Harare.
The traditional leader accused Mugabe’s widow, Grace, of breaking local customs by burying her husband in a manner that contravenes the law in the courtyard of their rural home in Kutama, Zvimba district.
The tribunal court later ordered Grace to give away five cows and two goats for having buried her husband in such a manner. The late strongman’s family is resisting the order.
Mugabe’s three children, Tinotenda Robert Jr, Bellarmine Chatunga and Bona appealed with the magistrate court in Chinhoyi stating that the chief had no judicial jurisdiction to interpret legal act from a superior authority.
Mugabe, who died in 2019, had refused to be buried at the National Heroes Acres in Harare over fears that some individuals especially his political opponents might steal his remains and use them in traditional rituals.
Some members of Mugabe’s family accuse President Emmerson Mnangagwa of orchestrating the exhumation.
Chief Zvimba however said he had received several complaints from the clan members about the manner in which Mugabe was interred.
The government has since last year been building a mausoleum for Mugabe’s remains at the National Heroes Acre.
