A 47-year-old South African resident, claiming to be a messenger of God sent to deliver a special message to the Zimbabwean President, Mr Robert Mugabe, and who was recently arrested for entering Zimbabwe illegally through the Beit Bridge Border Post without any travel documents, has been deported.

The Zimbabwean principal immigration officer for Matabeleland, Mr Studyington Madzudzo, said the accused, Mr Eric Larington Menziwa Maduna, a resident of Watersmith Village, in the Thukela district at Driefontein in KwaZulu-Natal, was deported on Monday (July 28), soon after he had paid a Z$20 billion fine for contravening a section of that country’s Immigration Act. He was deported through the Beit Bridge border post.

Maduna pleaded guilty to entering Zimbabwe without a valid travel document and was fined Z$20 billion (or two weeks in prison) by a Bulawayo magistrate, Miss Sithembiso Ncube, last week. The court heard that on July 18, at around midnight, Maduna, in the company of a Zimbabwean based in South Africa, Mr Edward Bhekumusa Thwala, crossed into Zimbabwe through the Beit Bridge border post without valid travel documents and proceeded to the Nkayi area. The next day (July 19), after returning from Nkayi, Maduna presented himself to the Luveve Police Station in Bulawayo, where he requested to see President Mugabe to whom he intended to relay a God-given message, relating to the cleansing of Zimbabwe and the whole world.

The following day, Maduna went to the criminal investigations department’s law and order section where, upon being interviewed, it emerged that he had entered the country without a valid travel document. He was then arrested.