Nehanda Radio reports that Vice President Constantino Chiwenga who was airlifted to a South African hospital last week, recovered from a health scare and over the weekend went to a police station in Pretoria to file charges of attempted murder against his estranged wife over 7 months after the alleged incident to try and rectify the weaknesses in his case against her.

The VP is now back in Zimbabwe.

Chiwenga is locked in a bitter divorce with Marry and last year got her arrested on charges of attempted murder, fraud and money laundering. The case is before the courts.

Chiwenga claimed his wife tried to kill him while he was on a hospital bed in South Africa before he was airlifted to China.

Marry has maintained that Chiwenga is suffering from “acute paranoia brought about by his poor health” and “his being under heavy doses of drugs, including un-prescribed opiates.”

Her defence team has argued that; “The primary evidence is said to be a medical report that shows the common cause fact that the Vice-President was in hospital. We are not told that the medical report corroborates the facts alleged by the State. The report is completely and utterly useless to the State. That the Vice-President was ill and hospitalised is a notorious fact.

“We would have expected the State to produce a report from the doctors who allegedly resuscitated the Vice-President. This is impossible because such reports do not exist, for the simple reason that the incident did not occur as alleged or at all. No doctor who respects his professional standing will be made to perjure himself,” the lawyers argued in their defence outline.

“Laughable is the so-called last exhibit. The State says it has a photograph of a bloodied T-shirt that the Vice-President was wearing. Surely an exhibit of that nature, despite it being merely of circumstantial relevance would have been kept and safeguarded. A photograph of a bloodied T-shirt remains a photograph, it proves nothing and cannot override primary evidence.”

“Either the State is not telling the truth or Zimbabwe should be seriously worried about the state of security personnel who guard important individuals. The probability that this allegation is a recent fabrication is, therefore, high,” Marry’s bail application papers read.

“When he was in China, the applicant’s husband requested the President arrange to have her to be sent to him. He even sent his personal security with US$30 000 for her personal upkeep and use. All this happened after July 2019 and in applicant’s assertion, it is inconceivable that this would have happened that she tried to murder her husband. This case is as weak as it is fabricated.”

“On the charge of externalising money to China, the State has only evidence of one witness that the appellant will challenge at trial. She will state that the witness would not have any basis to assume or allege that the money was moved illegally nor is the witness telling the truth.

“The money does not belong to the appellant and, in fact, was money belonging to her husband, who should be the person in the dock, assuming an offence was committed.”

• Nehanda Radio