By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe, son of former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, has been fined R600 000 and to be deported to Zimbabwe, while his co-accused Tobias Matonhodze to be jailed for three years for the shooting incident in Hyde Park, Johannesburg.
The two appeared at the Alexandra Magistrates Court in Johannesburg on Wednesday, 29 April 2026.
Mugabe pleaded guilty to pointing a firearm and contravening the Immigration Act by entering and remaining in SA unlawfully.
His cousin, Matonhodze, pleaded guilty to the more serious offences, which included attempted murder, obstructing and defeating the ends of justice, the unlawful possession of a firearm, possession of ammunition and contravening the Immigration Act.
The have been in custody since March after shooting an employee at the Mugabe residence in Hyde Park. They had previously abandoned their bail applications in favour of plea negotiations, which ultimately failed to produce an agreement with the State.
Magistrate Renier Boshoff said the fact that both accused were first-time offenders, along with their guilty pleas, counted in their favour as mitigating factors.
Boshoff sentenced Mugabe to a R600 000 fine or 24 months’ imprisonment, while Matonhodze was sentenced to an effective three years’ imprisonment.
“The court does not know much of the surrounding circumstances leading up to the shooting and the full extent of the injuries,” said Boshoff.
However, the disposal of the still-undiscovered firearm used in the incident was considered “a serious offence” by Boshoff.
The magistrates noted that if the weapons were found to be a 9mm pistol or semi-automatic weapon, the sentence could have been a minimum of 15 years.
The magistrate questioned if Mugabe and Matonhodze had been truly honest since their arrest, increasing the difficulty in apportioning a suitable degree of accountability.
“I do not know if the second accused took the wrap for you and I can only act on what is before me,” Boshoff said to Mugabe.
The court heard that the victim was compensated R400 000 for the incident and was willing to drop his complaint due to the payment.
Boshoff acknowledged that both had shown what he was willing to accept as “genuine remorse”, but added that the accused “can’t always sort it out with a payment”.
Bellarmine Mugabe is the youngest child of the former Zimbabwean leader and his second wife, Grace Mugabe. Robert Mugabe led Zimbabwe for 37 years and became renowned as one of Africa’s longest-serving autocrats before he was removed in a coup in 2017. He died two years later aged 95.
Bellarmine and his older brother Robert Jr have made headlines over the years for their flashy lifestyles in the face of rising poverty in Zimbabwe.
In 2017, a few weeks before the coup in which his father was ousted, he posted a picture of a $60,000 watch he was wearing on Instagram.
A few months earlier, the brothers were reportedly kicked out of a luxury apartment block in the affluent Johannesburg suburb of Sandton after complaints about the noise they were making.
There have been also several brushes with the law more recently.
In 2024 he was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer in the Zimbabwean border town of Beitbridge.
He was given bail but a warrant for his arrest was then issued after he failed to appear in court, Zimbabwe’s state-run Herald newspaper reported at the time.
A year later in June, he was again arrested for assaulting a security guard at a mining site in Mazowe, an hour’s drive north of the capital, Harare. He was bailed and the case has not yet concluded.