The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Harare, Zimbabwe | Xinhua | A Harare magistrate on Thursday spared Mary Mubaiwa, the estranged wife of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, a one-year jail term and instead fined her for marital fraud.
Mubaiwa was charged and convicted on Wednesday for violating the Marriages Act after fraudulently trying to solemnize her marriage to Chiwenga while he was bedridden in India in July 2019.
Magistrate Lazini Ncube spared Mubaiwa the custodial sentence or community service due to her ill health and instead ordered her to pay a fine of 60,000 Zimbabwe dollars (about 400 U.S. dollars).
The court said convincing evidence had been laid in court proving that Mubaiwa had violated the Marriages Act in her futile attempt to legally wed Chiwenga.
In passing the sentence, Ncube said Mubaiwa deserved a second chance and incarceration would fast track her ill health.
He said her condition would not allow her to perform community service and would be a burden to officials where she would be performing the unpaid work.
The case is one of the several that she faces following the breakdown of her marriage to Chiwenga two years ago.
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Xinhua
