Al Jazeera Gold Mafia: Chidodo Retracts Allegations Against Grace Mugabe

Cleopas Chidodo, the security manager of the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ), has retracted the allegations he made about former First Lady Grace Mugabe in Al Jazeera’s Gold Mafia documentary.

In the documentary, Chidodo claimed that Mugabe had used her influential status to smuggle diamonds and ivory out of Zimbabwe without her late husband’s knowledge. However, in a video recording, Chidodo apologised to Mugabe and the former first family, stating that the allegations he made were false and retracting them in full. He said:

I wish to render my unconditional apologies to Dr Grace Mugabe and the entire former first family for the falsehoods I mentioned about them in the said episode…

I wish the general public to know that it is untrue that Dr Grace Mugabe did the various illegal things that I mentioned in the video. Specifically, it is untrue that Dr Grace Mugabe killed elephants for ivory. It is untrue that Dr Grace Mugabe smuggled said ivory in hoards of containers through Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport. It is untrue that Dr Grace Mugabe would send a plane to Chiadzwa mining fields to collect diamonds and smuggle them outside of Zimbabwe. It is untrue that Dr Grace Mugabe devised a scheme to smuggle minerals and ivory behind the late former President Robert Mugabe’s back. It is untrue that the former first family made a lot of money smuggling minerals outside the country,” he added.

Chidodo said he was tricked by the Al Jazeera news network into making false allegations against Grace Mugabe. He claimed that the individuals who secretly recorded him had lied and initially approached him with an offer of scholarships for his family, but then changed the subject to smuggling minerals out of Zimbabwe. Chidodo also alleged that he was drugged during the recording, which affected his mental state and made him say things he did not remember saying.

Chidodo’s assets, along with those of three other Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe officials, were frozen last month as investigations into their alleged involvement in a gold smuggling scam continue. The government has requested evidence from Al Jazeera regarding the allegations of gold smuggling and money laundering, after President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his wife were implicated in the documentary. Uebert Angel, Mnangagwa’s ambassador-at-large, was also featured in the documentary revealing information and naming prominent individuals.

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