{"id":138118,"date":"2026-04-17T16:02:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T16:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/mugabes-son-pleads-guilty-to-pointing-a-gun-in-south-africa\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T16:02:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T16:02:51","slug":"mugabes-son-pleads-guilty-to-pointing-a-gun-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/mugabes-son-pleads-guilty-to-pointing-a-gun-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Mugabe\u2019s son pleads guilty to pointing a gun in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>ALEXANDRA, Apr 17 \u2013 The youngest son of Zimbabwe\u2019s late former leader Robert Mugabe has pleaded guilty to pointing a firearm and illegally being in South Africa.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bellarmine Mugabe entered guilty pleas to the two charges after he was arrested in February following the shooting of a 23-year-old man at his home in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n<p>The 28-year-old has been held in custody alongside co-accused Tobias Matonhodze, and appeared at the court in Alexandra on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers for the men told the court they were prepared to return to their native Zimbabwe at their own expense if they do not receive a custodial sentence.<\/p>\n<p>Matonhodze, 33, pleaded guilty to attempted murder, defeating the ends of justice, illegal immigration and possession of ammunition.<\/p>\n<p>Mugabe \u2013 who was also previously charged with attempted murder \u2013 spoke only to confirm that he understood the charges and to enter his pleas.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) told the BBC that it wasn\u2019t initially clear who had fired the gun but after Matonhodze admitted it was him, the charges of attempted murder against Mugabe were dropped.<\/p>\n<p>Both men were arrested on 19 February after police were called to Mugabe\u2019s home in the upmarket Johannesburg suburb of Hyde Park.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ALEXANDRA, Apr 17 \u2013 The youngest son of Zimbabwe\u2019s late former leader Robert Mugabe has pleaded guilty to pointing a firearm and illegally being in South Africa. Bellarmine Mugabe entered guilty pleas to the two charges after he was arrested in February following the shooting of a 23-year-old man at his home in Johannesburg. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}