Vice President Constantino Chiwenga’s estranged wife Marry Mubaiwa may end up having one of her arms amputated after failing to get the treatment she needs outside the country.
Mubaiwa is facing charges of attempting to murder VP Chiwenga, money laundering, fraud, assault and an attempt to forge a marriage certificate. She was arrested in 2019.
She is expected to stand trial but she is suffering severe lymphoedema and spontaneous formation of abscesses whose origins have not been determined.
Through her lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, she has applied for the postponement of the trial in order to get treatment but noting that she may end up having her arm amputated because the court did not allow her to travel to South Africa to get proper treatment.
Mtetwa told the court on Tuesday that her client was not receiving proper medication and if the situation continued she would be amputated. Mtetwa said this while applying for a postponement of a trial which was scheduled to start before Harare magistrate Lazini Ncube
“She may end up being amputated because none of the medication she is receiving is working well,” Mtetwa said.
Mtetwa called doctor Simukai Machawira, a cardiovascular surgeon at Parirenyatwa Hospital who filed Mubaiwa’s medical report to the witness stand to explain her condition.
Dr Machawira said when the clinical director asked him to see Mubaiwa, she had “impaired lymphatic return which was causing her limbs to swell.” He added that Mubaiwa was currently on six mental variation medications.
The doctor said Mubaiwa was using stop pain, migraine pain relievers which also work as antidepressants, sleeping tablets or sedatives, cleanser or detox, and pills that lower her blood pressure.
“It may alter mental status… but someone who does a mental examination may be able to make that determination,” the doctor said.
“A lot of patients are put on medication to control or assist them mentally to cope with pain or stress and as a result they are able to carry out their normal day-to-day activities… but I’m not qualified to comment on mental examinations.”
State prosecutor Michael Reza unsurprisingly challenged the application to delay the trial saying it was “strange” that Mubaiwa was only raising issues of mental health problems now.
“This is a classic case of an afterthought,” Reza said.
Mtetwa asked the magistrate to postpone the trial. She said that Chiwenga was the complainant and “should not play a role in the cases she is facing”, adding: “Justice must prevail, the trial must commence when she is able to stand it. That is all she is asking for. Fairness.”
“We pray that you postpone the matter so that she is examined by an expert who will look at her mental health, drugs, dosages she is taking and therefore be able to place before the court whether or not she is in a fit mental state to stand trial,” she pleaded.
The magistrate will make a ruling on Friday.
