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Sunday 20 November 2011

KING’S WIFE THROWN OUT OF PALACE

Inkhosikati LaDube, the 12th wife of Swaziland’s King Mswati III, who last year was involved in a love affair with a cabinet minister, has been kicked out of the royal palace following a fight with a security guard. She said she pepper-sprayed him in the eyes to protect herself.

The Sunday Times newspaper in South Africa reports today (20 November 2011), ‘Inkhosikati LaDube [also known as Nothando Dube] was ordered to “immediately leave the palace” by royal governor Timothy Mthethwa, who was accompanied by other senior members of the royal family.’

The news will not be published by the media in Swaziland because they have a long-standing agreement not to report on King Mswati without his permission.

The Sunday Times says LaDube, aged 23, told the newspaper she had had an argument with a security guard who refused to let her out of the palace last Saturday.

She wanted to take the youngest of her three children, aged two, to hospital after she had injured herself while playing - but the guard said she was not allowed to leave.

‘[He] threatened to hit me, saying I am not going anywhere with my child, who was bleeding from a deep wound,’ she told the newspaper.

LaDube says an altercation ensued and she was ‘physically prevented’ from leaving the palace. ‘I had to protect myself so I [pepper]-sprayed him in the eyes.’

The matter was reported to the Queen Mother, who, the Sunday Times reports, apparently decided that LaDube had been disrespectful and had to be kicked out.

‘I couldn't even take all my stuff, because they just said “you have to pack and leave now”,’ she said. Her children remain at the palace.

The Sunday Times is usually on sale in Swaziland so we shall have to see if copies are pulled from the shelves today.

After LaDube’s love affair with the then Justice Minister Ndumiso Mamba was revealed in August 2010 by the City Press, another South African newspaper usually available in Swaziland, security forces were reportedly dispatched around the kingdom to buy up all copies.

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