Grace Mugabe, the widow of Zimbabwe’s longtime former ruler Robert Mugabe, has challenged a court order to exhume her husband’s remains for reburial at a national shrine, court papers showed Monday.
Mugabe was buried in his rural home village of Kutama, about 90 kilometres (55 miles) west of the capital Harare, in September 2019 after weeks of wrangling over his final resting place.
His family had opposed the government’s plans to bury him at the National Heroes’ Acre in Harare, where it had started constructing a special mausoleum for him.
But in May, a traditional leader fined Grace Mugabe five cows and two goats for improperly burying Mugabe and ordered his exhumation and reburial in Harare.
Mugabe’s children then appealed the chief’s directive — but a magistrate court last month confirmed that order, saying the ex-president’s children had no legal authority to challenge the exhumation of their father.
That prompted Grace Mugabe to take over the legal battle.
