A complete joke: that’s how Debbie Engels described Grace Mugabe’s assertions that her daughter tried to attack Mugabe with a knife in a Joburg hotel last month.
Engels was reacting to a deposition in which the Zimbabwean first lady claims Engels’ daughter Gabriella was “intoxicated and unhinged” when sheand tried to attack Mugabe with a knife.
According to Gabriella, a fuming Zimbabwe first lady barged into a Joburg hotel room last month when her and her friends were waiting to meet Mugabe’s son, Bellermine Chatunga.
Gabriella further alleged that Mugabe assaulted her with an extension cord. Charges were laid by Engels but were rendered moot after Department of International Relations and Co-operation (Dirco) Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane granted the Zimbabwe first ladyMugabe diplomatic immunity.
Mugabe, in the August 17 deposition revealed yesterday by Reuters, labelled that Gabriella’s allegations were “malicious”, and said she was considering filing attempted murder charges against the 20-year-old South African model.
Engels said she found this to be “laughable”, saying Mugabe was “pathetic” and grasping at straws. “If my daughter had tried to stab her with a knife, why didn’t she go to the police and open a case?
Also, how can my daughter get to her with a knife when she is surrounded by bodyguards? It boggles the mind this woman comes up with these things.”
In the deposition statement, Mugabe also claims Gabriella was in a fight with other women the night before the hotel-room incident at Sandton’s Taboo nightclub, and this was where Gabriella received the injuries shown in images posted on social media.
The pictures showed Gabriella with a severe cut on the top of her head and forehead.
Engels conceded to The Star that an altercation took place at Taboo on the night Mugabe mentions, but added it was her daughter’s friends who were “arguing” with unknown women, where Gabriella “tried to stop the fight”.
“She was with two of her friends that night. Her friends were having an altercation with women that were with the Mugabe boy. I don’t know if Robert was there, but Bellermine was there,” Engels explained.
“She (Gabriella) came out into the parking lot and found her friends arguing with other women, and she tried to stop the fight.”
Dirco spokesperson Clayson Monyela said there was no obligation for anyone to inform the department should charges need to be laid.
“It’s a matter between them, the police and the courts if someone decides to lay charges. Why would they go to Dirco? Her decision to lay criminal charges has got nothing to do with us, whether she has immunity from us or not,” said Monyela emphasised.
Police spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo refused to comment.
Asked how her daughter was coping, Engels said Gabriella was doing much better, but that her life had been “turned upside down” since her ordeal.
“It is going to be a long road for her because she is now limited as to where she can go. She must now thinks twice before she can go out for fear of people walking up to her and asking her a lot of questions.”