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Mugabe's Wife Pounds Photog

Brit learns hard way not to mess with first lady and her diamond-encrusted rings

By Wesley Oliver, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 18, 2009 1:45 PM CST

(Newser) – The wife of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe attacked a photographer for the Times of London who caught her leaving a posh Hong Kong hotel, the newspaper reports. Grace Mugabe ordered her bodyguard to seize the shutterbug’s camera—and then joined in the fracas. The photographer suffered nine cuts, abrasions and bruises to the face caused by the diamond-encrusted rings Mugabe was wearing.

“She was standing there in a mad rage, screaming something at me, and just kept lining up the punches, all into my face,” said the photog. “I thought, how can a first lady be doing this?”

[Images (4)]

[Quotes (2)]

President Robert Mugabe walks during the inauguration ceremony, watched by his wife Grace, at the State House in Harare, Sunday, June, 29, 2008. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

A Sunday Times photographer has been beaten up and punched repeatedly in the face by Grace Mugabe, the wife of President Robert Mugabe. (AP Photo/File)

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, left, and his wife Grace, right, react during a visit to Harare hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe, Thursday, March 27, 2008. (AP Photo)

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, right, is kissed by his wife Grace, at his inauguration ceremony at State House in Harare, Sunday, June 29, 2008. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

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Out of the corner of my eye I saw her charging towards me in a rage. As soon as she arrived she started trying to get my camera too. I wouldn’t let go. He held me and she just started aiming punches into my face. - Richard Jones, photographer

She was standing there in a mad rage, screaming something at me, and just kept lining up the punches, all into my face. She had some nice jewellery and was aware it would cut me, I’m sure. She looked totally deranged. - Richard Jones

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Mugabe's Wife Pounds Photog