Mugabe bodyguards escape charges over alleged Hong Kong assaults

Jun 9, 2009, 2:09 GMT

Hong Kong - Two bodyguards protecting the daughter of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe will not be prosecuted for allegedly roughing up two photographers in Hong Kong, officials said Tuesday.

Government lawyers have decided the male and female bodyguards hired to mind 20-year-old Bona Mugabe, who is at university in Hong Kong, behaved as they did because they were 'genuinely concerned for the safety of Miss Mugabe.'

The two Zimbabwean nationals, who have not been named, allegedly assaulted Briton Colin Galloway and American Tim O'Rourke on February 13 outside a 5-million-US-dollar villa in Hong Kong provided for Bona by her father while she studies.

The photographers were working for The Sunday Times in London, which was investigating the Mugabe family's links to Hong Kong, and complained to police after O'Rourke was alleged grabbed by the neck and Galloway gripped and bruised by a man in his 30s.

The incident took place one month after Robert Mugabe's wife and Bona's mother, Grace, allegedly assaulted another photographer who took pictures of her shopping in Tsim Sha Tsui. The Department of Justice later decided she was entitled to diplomatic immunity.

The case involving the bodyguards was classified by police as common assault and advice was sought from Hong Kong's Department of Justice in March as to whether a prosecution should be brought.

A department spokeswoman told the German News Agency dpa, 'They saw it as their duty to protect Miss Mugabe from any sort of danger, whether actual or perceived.'

At the time of the incident, Bona was about to leave the villa, which Robert Mugabe reportedly bought through a middle-man last year, to go to university, the spokeswoman said.

'The bodyguards were genuinely concerned for the safety of Miss Mugabe. They appeared to have believed that they were acting properly in intercepting the complainants who they considered to be trespassing,' she said.

Even though the actions of the bodyguards 'might have caused the complainants to believe that disproportionate force had been used', she said, events had to be taken in their context.

'Miss Mugabe was about to leave the house in a two-car convoy with her security personnel when the complainants suddenly appeared at the scene, and the (bodyguards) were apprehensive for her safety in the circumstances which confronted them,' she said.

'Regard ... needed to be had to the difficult they faced in weighing to a nicety each and every action they took to ensure her safety, particularly when they saw it as their duty to protect Miss Mugabe from any sort of danger, whether actual or perceived.'

Reacting to the case, O'Rourke said: 'I am not surprised by this decision but what does it say about Hong Kong and freedom of the press? It looks pretty bad.'

The lawyer representing the two photographers, Michael Vidler, said: 'We are very concerned about this decision and we are taking advice from legal counsel.'

He said both photographers immediately identified themselves as journalists and neither bodyguard expressed concern at any stage for Bona Mugabe, who was not seen anywhere in the vicinity of the alleged assault.

A tape recording taken by Galloway and handed to police made it clear the alleged assaults took place, in the words of one of the two bodyguards, 'because you were taking pictures', he said.

Vidler said: 'It appears that in Hong Kong, anyone linked to any regime like Zimbabwe, and anyone with links, however distant, to any head of state, whatever we think of that head of state, can casually disregard the rights of the press to investigate a legitimate story.'