Model faked marriage to Zimbabwe VP: court

The former model accused of trying to kill Zimbabwe's vice president faked the marriage documents that would have formalised their eight-year relationship, a court ruled on Thursday.

Marry Mubaiwa, 40, once moved among the cream of Zimbabwean society, first married to an international footballer who she left to take up with the then-army chief Constantino Chiwenga.

Her star kept rising after Chiwenga orchestrated the 2017 coup against Robert Mugabe, landing him the vice presidency as his ally Emmerson Mnangagwa took power.

But then money laundering, fraud and murder charges derailed her ambitions. A lymphatic disease meanwhile ravaged her body so badly that doctors are planning to amputate her forearm.

Mubaiwa and Chiwenga were wed under customary law, including a traditional offering of cattle to her family.

The relationship turned sour. While Chiwenga was hospitalised in South Africa in 2019, she is charged with trying to kill him by removing his intravenous lines.

Around that time, she also forged his signature on documents that would have formalised their wedding as a civil marriage, which grants more rights to women in the event of a divorce, the court ruled Thursday.

"The accused made a false statement... that there was consent from Chiwenga yet there was none," the ruling read.

Due to her illness, Mubaiwa avoided a prison sentence and received a fine of 60,000 Zimbabwe dollars ($380, 350 euros).

Mubaiwa accuses Chiwenga of blocking all her efforts to seek treatment abroad despite the ill-equipped Zimbabwean hospital system having no specialists to treat her condition.

Her murder case, as well as a $1 million money laundering case, are still pending.