Mugabe wife to sue newspaper for publishing WikiLeaks story

Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe has filed a $15m (€11.4m) lawsuit against a newspaper after it published a story citing WikiLeaks cables alleging her involvement in illegal diamond deals.

Raphael Khumalo, chief executive at the Zimbabwe Standard, said court documents were served by lawyers.

The newspaper has faced several lawsuits over its reporting. Its editor was arrested last month over reports relating to military recruitment.

In a WikiLeaks cable dated 2008, former US Ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee says Grace Mugabe and Gideon Gono, the governor of the state central bank, "reaped tremendous profits" from corruption and violence-plagued diamond fields in eastern Zimbabwe.

Mugabe's submissions to the High Court in Harare described McGee's remarks as being "false, scandalous, malicious, wrongful and defamatory".

McGee implied she was complicit in human rights violations and crimes two years before the world diamond control body authorised limited international sales of Zimbabwe's diamonds in the deposits discovered in 2006.

Zimbabwe's diamond sales are still mired in disputes with the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme over mining activities that the world control body says have met minimum international standards but must be improved before further sales are permitted.

Grace Mugabe, 45, married the president, 86, a decade ago. She said the newspaper's story damaged her reputation as "mother of the nation".

Grace Mugabe has three children with the elderly president. Reports of her lavish, extravagant lifestyle have prompted the president's opponents to dub her "Dis-Grace".