HARARE, April 15 (Bernama) -- Mary Mubaiwa, the estranged wife of Zimbabwe's Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, was on Thursday spared 12 months imprisonment or community service due her ill health, after being convicted of attempted marital fraud.
Harare magistrate Lazini Ncube instead order Mubaiwa to pay US$60,000 fine, failure of which she would serve the sentence, reported Zimbabwe's New Ziana news agency.
Mubaiwa was charged with violating the Marriages Act for fraudulently trying to solemnise her marriage to Chiwenga while he was bedridden in India in July 2019.
The court said convincing evidence had been led in court proving Mubaiwa had violated the Marriages Act in her futile attempt to legally wed the vice president.
In passing the sentence, Ncube said Mubaiwa deserved a second chance and incarceration would fast track her ill health.
He said her condition would not allow her to perform community service and would be a burden to officials where she would be performing the unpaid work.
The case, one of several she faces, contributed to the breakdown of Mubaiwa's marriage to VP Chiwenga two years ago.
Since the breakdown of her marriage, Mubaiwa has fallen on hard times, with her health failing gravely and dramatically.
-- BERNAMA
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