SWAZILAND’S 32-year-old King Mswati III has secretly wed his seventh wife, an 18-year-old woman who became the centre of controversy when a newspaper labelled her a “dropout”. Mswati married Liphovela Senteni Masango, selected at last year’s annual ritual in which maidens dance for him, in a traditional ceremony last week. Masango was the centre of a uproar in Swaziland this year when she was labelled a “highschool dropout” by the independent Times of Swaziland which revealed that she had been kicked out of two schools for absenteeism and indiscipline. The editor Bheki Makhubu was forced to resign and charged with criminal defamation. He is due to answer to the charges in the Mbabane senior magistrate’s court this month. Mswati selected Masango, now titled princess, at last year’s annual royal reed dance ceremony, at which he customarily selects a new wife from the thousands of maidens who dance for him. The next ceremony is due within a few weeks.