Former deputy minister in messy divorce
Harare – The lawyers representing Anne Elisabeth Matonga nee Pout, the estranged wife of former Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga have written to the High Court requesting the court to set down for a pre-trial conference the matter in which the former is suing businesswoman Sharon Mugabe for adultery.
In a letter to the High Court dated January 04, 2010, lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa of Mtetwa and Nyambirai is requesting that the matter be set down for a pre trial conference after it failed to take off last year.
“We request that the matter (case number 2085/09) be re-set down for a pre-trial conference after it failed to take off on November 24, 2009. Despite numerous correspondences to the defendant’s (Sharon Mugabe) lawyers, we have not heard anything from them,” wrote Mtetwa in the letter a copy of which was seen by RadioVOP.
The matter has been assigned to High Court Judge Justice November Mtshiya.
Anne, who is locked in divorce proceedings with Matonga, is arguing that Mugabe ruined her marriage by committing adultery and ultimately brazenly snatching her husband.
To compensate for the suffering she underwent as a result, Anne who is now surviving on charity is demanding $50 000 from Mugabe who runs a marketing and communications firm, Imago Y&R.
Matonga, in 2008, officially moved out of the Matonga matrimonial home on a Chegutu farm they seized from a commercial farmer and moved in with the 36-year-old widow and wealthy businesswoman.
Sharon Mugabe is however denying the accusations. She says she never knew that Matonga had been married to Anne, adding she only got acquainted with him when their marriage had irretrievably broken down.
But according to Anne’s submissions, her marriage to Matonga was well publicised especially after she supported her husband in grabbing a Banket farm from its white owners.
Anne says while her marriage still subsisted, the adulterous pair started their relationship sometime between late 2007 and early 2008. By June last year, Anne says Matonga had deserted her and their minor child and was staying with Mugabe at Number 23 Rolfe Avenue in Ballantyne Park.
Anne also notes in court papers that the two did not just commit adultery in hotels in and outside Zimbabwe, but ended up staying together as husband and wife despite the fact that she was still married to Matonga.
Matonga married Anne, six years his senior and a former municipal information- technology manager in 1997, and moved into her home in Billericay, a small commuter town in Essex, England, according to family sources.
Matonga is said to have met Anne while he was still at a college in Southend-on-Sea, a resort town east of London, where he studied media production and technology at South East Essex College.
Halfway through the four-year program, according to our sources, immigration officials tried to deport him after a change in rules for foreign students made him ineligible to stay. Anne is said to have intervened and averted her then boyfriend’s deportation. Radio VOP
