A senior official in the Swazi palace on Monday denied reports that King Mswati’s 12th wife Nothando Dube had been banished from the royal household after quarreling with a guard.
The disgraced queen, who has been under house arrest since being caught in bed last year with the justice minister, was sent packing after she tried to leave the palace to take her injured child to hospital, South Africa’s Sunday Times reported.
“The inkhosikati [queen] is visiting her home and she will return,” said Timothy Velabo Mtetwa, regarded as the prime minister for traditional affairs.
Mtetwa said the queen, known as LaDube, was visiting her grandmother in northern Swaziland and was expected to come back.
“Inkosikati LaDube left with her bodyguards, who are currently keeping a vigilant eye on her as she is still part of the royal family,” said Mtetwa.
He also threatened to take legal action against the Sunday Times for publishing false information.
Dube ( 23) married the polygamist king when she was 16. He has since married his 13th wife.
She told the Sunday Times that she was roughed up by a guard at the palace gate and had to pepper spray him to protect herself.
“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.
Her two-year-old child had injured herself while playing.
The matter was reported to the Queen Mother, who known as the “great she elephant” and she was later told to pack her bags and leave her two children behind, the paper said. — AFP