Charamba let off on wife battering charges

Charamba let off on wife battering charges

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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE President Robert Mugabe had wife-battering charges against his spokesman George Charamba thrown out to avoid damaging his office's reputation, it has emerged.

Government officials said Mugabe's office covered up charges that Charamba had allegedly assaulted his wife, Rudo, during a row over a missing gun on February 24 last year.

The incident allegedly took place at the couple's Mandara home in Harare. Charamba is said to have a black belt in karate.

The officials said the case was dropped against the will of police commissioner Augustine Chihuri after Mugabe intervened.

He allegedly merely summoned Charamba and warned him about his actions.

"Charamba beat up his wife severely on February 24 last year, after he had returned from a foreign trip with Mugabe. He assaulted her badly and she was taken to a local hospital bleeding profusely.

"The issue was brought to Chihuri's attention and he wanted to have Charamba prosecuted, but when it went to Mugabe he did not want to create a messy affair and the issue was suppressed," a source said.

The claims first surfaced two weeks ago in Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF newspaper, The Voice, in a column written by the paper's editor Lovemore Mataire. Charamba had recently attacked Mataire in the government-controlled Herald, calling him a "failed and incompetent editor".

He had also accused Mataire of hobnobbing with opposition politicians and moonlighting for the Voice of America's Studio 7.

He claimed that Mataire had gone on a jaunt with a girlfriend and caused a car crash, which cost her an eye. In return, Mataire accused Charamba of "spousal abuse and other immoral activities".

He described Mugabe's press secretary as a liar who gushed "stinking effluent".

Charamba refused to comment on the allegations, referring queries to his lawyer Johannes Tomana.

Tomana said: "There was that matter by the police but the case was withdrawn. Check that with the wife."

Sources said the case was reported at Borrowdale Police Station, after Rudo's relatives and friends intervened.

One of Rudo's friends, who helped her, told the Sunday Times he had taken away her bloody clothes and was keeping them as an exhibit - Sunday Times
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