Bellarmine Mugabe, the youngest son of Zimbabwe's late former president Robert Mugabe, has been ordered to be deported from South Africa immediately after pleading guilty to pointing a firearm and illegally residing in the country. The Johannesburg court also fined him $36,000 (£26,700).
His co-accused and cousin, Tobias Matonhodze, pleaded guilty to attempted murder, illegal immigration, possession of ammunition, and defeating the ends of justice. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
The two men were arrested on 19 February after police responded to a shooting at Mugabe's home in the upscale Johannesburg suburb of Hyde Park. A 23-year-old man working at the property was shot twice in the back and taken to hospital in critical condition. Prosecutors said the shooting followed a row inside the property, and the victim was fleeing when he was shot. The weapon has not been recovered.
Mugabe, 28, was initially charged with attempted murder, but the charge was dropped after Matonhodze pleaded guilty. The pointing-a-firearm charge stems from a separate incident, though Mugabe agreed to have both cases heard together.
During sentencing, the judge noted that the gun in question was a toy, but it was "likely to lead a person to believe it was a firearm."
This is not Mugabe's first legal trouble. In 2024, he was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer in Beitbridge, Zimbabwe, and a warrant was issued after he failed to appear in court. In 2025, he was arrested for assaulting a security guard at a mining site in Mazowe; that case is still pending.
Bellarmine is one of two sons Robert Mugabe had with his second wife, Grace. The former president ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years until a 2017 coup ousted him. He died in 2019.