Arrests, accusations and arguments - the Mugabe family after losing power

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Khanyisile NgcoboJohannesburg

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Reuters

Bellarmine Mugabe, along with co-accused Tobias Tamirepi Matonhodze, made an initial court appearance last month

The arrest in South Africa of the youngest son of Zimbabwe’s former President, Robert Mugabe, has brought renewed attention to the former first family and their controversies over the years.

Bellarmine Mugabe, who is due in court on Wednesday for a bail hearing, is accused of attempted murder, among other charges, after a 23-year-old man was shot and injured at a property in an upmarket suburb of Johannesburg.

He has not commented on the charges.

His father led Zimbabwe for 37 years before being forced out of power at the age of 93 in 2017. He died two years later.

The long-serving president and his second wife Grace had three children together:

• Bona Mugabe - now 37
• Robert Mugabe Jr - now 33
• Bellarmine Mugabe - now 28.

Grace also had a son from an earlier marriage:

• Russell Goreraza - now in his early 40s.

Managing editor of Zimbabwean privately owned NewsHawks website, Dumisani Muleya, told the BBC that the Mugabe family had “lived a life of privilege” and that the children “grew up in that environment where they were protected from the broader realities of the Zimbabwean political and socio-economic situation”.

The family had amassed a vast personal fortune, including $10m (£7.5m) in cash, four houses, 10 cars, a farm and an orchard among other assets.

These details emerged three months after Robert Mugabe’s death in a legal letter submitted to the high court in Zimbabwe by his daughter Bona. At the time, a lawyer for the family, Terrence Hussein, told the BBC that none of the properties were under the former leader’s name.

In 2013, Grace denied that her husband was accumulating wealth while in office saying her husband did not earn as much as people thought as he was a civil servant.

“The allowance I get is just a pittance. I’m a business-minded person [and] I support my husband [by] running our private businesses,” she said.

Here is a run-down of what has happened to the family members:

Bellarmine Mugabe

Like his siblings, he grew up in the public eye and was subjected to scrutiny from a young age.

But as a teenager it was Bellarmine’s approach to studying that appeared to have been a concern for his parents.

In a wide-ranging interview in 2013 on South African television, they described his playfulness and lack of focus on academics.

Grace said she wanted him to “change his ways” and “concentrate on his studies”.

“He should be more serious than he is at the moment,” his father added.

Bellarmine sheepishly admitted to spending more time on video games than his schoolwork.

Gallo Images/Getty Images

Bellarmine ® was pictured with his parents in 2011 as they cut a cake in celebration of Robert Mugabe’s 87th birthday

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 had posted a picture of a $60,000 watch he was wearing on Instagram.

A few months earlier, the brothers were reportedly kicked out 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.

The current case in South Africa against Bellarmine has faced several delays since his arrest in mid-February and his bail application hearing has already been postponed twice.

Robert Mugabe Jr

Also no stranger to run-ins with the police, Robert Jr was arrested in 2023 over allegations he damaged property at a party in Harare.

He faced three counts of malicious damage to property and two charges of assault on a police officer, his lawyer said at the time. He was accused of smashing car windscreens and spitting on a police officer.

He maintained his innocence and was later freed after agreeing to an out-of-court settlement with the complainant, who was a friend of his.

AFP via Getty Images

Robert Jr (L) and Bellarmine were pictured together in 2019 as they mourned their father

In 2025, after pleading guilty, Robert Jr was convicted and fined in Zimbabwe for possession of cannabis.

He had been arrested as he drove the wrong way down a one-way street, according to court documents. Police searched a black sling bag he was wearing at the time and allegedly found two small sachets of cannabis.

Officers said they recovered 2g of cannabis, with a street value of $30, but his lawyer said the amount was 0.02g.

Grace Mugabe

The former first lady, now 60, gained a reputation, and criticism, over the years for her alleged appetite for shopping and extravagance, earning her the moniker “Gucci Grace”.

She denied the disparaging accusations and in the 2013 interview said detractors believed she was a “soft target”.

“I’m not really what they say I am and I’m actually surprised by some of the things they say… I work so hard and I don’t have time to pamper myself. I make my own clothes and tie my own scarf,” she said.

In the latter part of her husband’s presidency she began positioning herself as a potential successor.

She headed up the women’s league of Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF partyand was instrumental in the ousting of several alternative potential candidates.

AFP via Getty Images

Grace pictured supporting Robert Mugabe, aged 93, days before his was ousted as president in 2017

Her plans fell apart when Mugabe was deposed after he sacked then Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa in November 2017.

Her business empire subsequently fell apart - and her multimillion-dollar dairy firm, Gushungo Dairy Estates, closed in 2022 reportedly mired in huge debts.

Some argued that it only stayed afloat because of official patronage, which fell away after Mugabe’s ousting.

However, she continues to live in the vast Blue Roof mansion in Harare, which was bought by Zanu-PF as a place for Robert Mugabe while he was still in power.

The party transferred ownership of the property to the family after he died.

Saving Grace: The cost of diplomatic immunity

Grace is unable to travel to South Africa, where she faces a warrant of arrest relating to a case that happened not long before the Mugabes left power

She was accused in 2017 of assaulting a young woman, Gabriella Engels, with an electric extension cord in a hotel room in Johannesburg.

Grace had said at the time that she had acted in self-defence after she was attacked in the room where Bellarmine and Robert Jr lived. According to Engels, she and her friend were visiting the brothers.

An investigation was launched but Grace was given diplomatic immunity, allowing her to leave South Africa without answering questions. That immunity was annulled in July 2018, eight months after the coup, and the arrest warrant issued.

This incident echoed one in 2009, when the then first lady was accused of assaulting a British newspaper photographer in Hong Kong, where her daughter Bona was studying.

Richard Jones said that Grace had punched him while wearing a diamond-studded ring. She was not charged as she was given diplomatic immunity by the Chinese government.

Grace later said she was pushed too far and said she was “protecting my daughter”.

“I had to [punch him] but I really don’t know what happened, I had all this energy,” she said in the 2013 interview.

Bona Mugabe

While the rest of the family’s exploits have made headlines over the years, Bona largely stayed out of the spotlight - until a bitter divorce thrust her into the public eye.

Mugabe’s eldest child and only daughter filed for divorce from former pilot Simbarashe Chikore in 2023, sparking a highly publicised legal battle between the two.

Chikore wanted a share of what he said was $80m worth of residential properties, including a mansion in Dubai and 21 farms - something that flies in the face of her father’s policy of “one household, one farm”.

AFP via Getty Images

Details of the family’s wealth emerged during Bona’s divorce proceedings

He also detailed a list of other assets she owned, saying this was just a “drop in the ocean”.

Bona did not respond to her estranged husband’s allegations but a former spokesperson for her father denied the couple owned 21 farms.

They eventually opted to settle their divorce privately following public scrutiny and outrage over the revelations.

Bona and Chikore had married at a lavish wedding in 2014 that was attended by several African heads of state - and was broadcast live on state television - and have three children.

Russell Goreraza

In 2015, Grace’s oldest son Russell Goreraza was convicted of manslaughter and fined $800 (£595).

This came after he knocked down and killed an unidentified man in his car in Harare earlier that year. Goreraza was speeding at the time of the accident.

Sentencing for culpable homicide varies depending on the magistrate and their interpretation of the circumstances, but two-year prison terms have been handed down in similar cases.

The magistrate presiding over this case steered clear of a sentence becaue of Goreraza’s remorse and the fact that he was a first-time offender.

Where are the Mugabes now?

The family has largely retreated from public life since 2017.

The ousted president was bitter about the way he was treated by his Zanu-PF party and campaigned for the opposition in the 2018 elections.

But since his death, his wife, daughter Bona and Robert Jr appeared to reconcile with the party, attending President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s most recent inauguration in 2023.

The Mugabes, except for Bellarmine, are believed to be in Zimbabwe though they have been known to travel in and out of the country.

The BBC contacted a family spokesperson for comment, but they declined to confirm the family’s whereabouts.

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