The High Court on Wednesday struck off the urgent roll, a case where former First Lady Grace Mugabe is challenging the exhumation of the remains of her late husband, former President Robert Mugabe.

A village head Tinos Manongovere, from Zvimba, Mugabe’s rural home, filed an application to have the former leader’s body exhumed and reburied at the National Heroes Acre in Harare.

In his application filed at the High Court on 22 October 2021, Manongovere said:

What totally surprised me is that the applicant (Grace) did not bother to cite me as a party to the proceedings despite the fact that the rules of the court require that I should be cited.

I was a party in the magistrate’s court and I deserve to be heard before this honourable court makes a decision which adversely affects me.

To my utter shock, even though the proceedings in the community court related to a claim against Moyo by me, Grace deliberately failed to cite me in her application to set aside Chief Zvimba, Stanely Mhondoro.

He further insisted that Grace violated customary rites and traditions by failing to bury Mugabe at the designated burial site in Zvimba where his mother, sisters, brothers, and the rest of his clansmen are buried.

Grace is challenging an order by Chinhoyi magistrate Ruth Moyo to proceed with the exhumation of Mugabe’s remains.