‘Too forward’ Mbalula needs to be careful, says Holomisa

Police Minister Fikile Mbalula has been highly criticised after publicly announcing Grace Mugabe had handed herself to the police on Tuesday.

The 52-year-old wife of Mugabe is accused of beating model Gabriella Engels, 20, on Sunday evening at the Johannesburg hotel where her two sons, Robert Jr, 25, and Bellarmine Chatunga, 21, were staying.

Engels alleges Mugabe burst into a room on Sunday night at The Capital 20 West Hotel in Sandton – where she and two other women were sitting – and started hitting them with an extension cord as her bodyguards looked on.

The other women decided not to lay any charges against Mugabe.

Engels said she suffered deep cuts to her forehead and the back of her head, and on Monday, she registered a case with the police, alleging assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Mbalula on Tuesday said Mugabe had handed herself over to the police and would appear in court. However, reports later emerged that she was nowhere to be seen and failed to appear in court on an assault charge.

There have been contradicting reports on the whereabouts of the Zimbabwean first lady.

It was widely reported Mugabe landed in Harare late on Tuesday afternoon at the privately owned Charles Prince Airport, despite Mbalula having said she had handed herself over to the police and would appear in court.

On Wednesday morning, sources claimed Mugabe was still in the country and negotiating with police.

The contradicting reports have received criticism from UDM leader Bantu Holomisa, who said Mbalula needed to be “careful”.

“He should allow police to comment instead of compromising his office,” he said.

Even former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor has criticised the police minister for being “too forward”.

“Fikile Mbalula uyaphapha! He is too forward! I hope he learned,” she said.

The DA said the contradicting reports showed SAPS was clearly in a “shoddy” and “sorry” state.

The state of the SAPS was made worse by “their having to follow the lead of Mbalula, a police minister who knows more about making himself trend on Twitter rather than improving police operations and investigations in order to reverse the rising and ongoing trends of serious, organised and violent crimes”, said the party.

Social media users also criticised the minister for his announcement, with one saying: “I hope Mbaks is telling the truth this time – I don’t trust anything the chap says.”

“The Twitter minister has got it wrong again, this must be the most useless minister ever,” said another.

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