Mugabe bodyguards escape prosecution in Hong Kong

By Tichaona Sibanda
9 June 2009

Two bodyguards protecting Bona Mugabe, Robert Mugabe’s 20 year-old daughter, will not be prosecuted for allegedly roughing up two photographers in Hong Kong in February.

Media reports from Hong Kong said government lawyers decided the male and female bodyguards hired to protect Bona behaved as they did because they were 'genuinely concerned for the safety of the first year student at a Hong Kong university’.

The two unnamed bodyguards allegedly assaulted Briton Colin Galloway and American Tim O’Rourke on February 13th outside a $5 million villa in Hong Kong, being rented by Mugabe for Bona while she attends university.

The photographers were working for The Sunday Times in London, which was investigating the Mugabe family’s links to Hong Kong, and complained to police after O'Rourke was alleged grabbed by the neck and Galloway gripped and bruised by a man in his 30s.

The incident took place one month after Robert Mugabe’s wife and Bona's
mother Grace, assaulted another photographer who took pictures of her shopping in Hong Kong. The Department of Justice decided she was entitled to diplomatic immunity.

The case involving the bodyguards was classified by police as common assault and advice was sought from Hong Kong's Department of Justice in March as to whether a prosecution should be brought.