The young woman at the centre of a dispute between Swaziland’s King Mswati III and her mother who claims she was abducted, said on Monday she was ready to marry the 34-year-old king.
In an exclusive interview which could end the lawsuit the girl’s mother has filed seeking her release, the 18-year-old Zena Soraya Mahlangu told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, that she was ready to get married and nothing could make her change her mind.
”Not even the lawsuit my mother is currently pursuing will make me change my mind about getting married to the king,” she said, repeatedly referring to Mswati as ”my husband”.
Zena said she had settled in to her new life and was sitting exams whose results, she said, would not change anything about her new status. ”I have told the two court messengers that I am happy here and want to be married to the king. They will report this message to the court,” she said.
Last week Zena’s mother claimed in papers before the High Court that her daughter, together with two other girls, was abducted by members of the royalty to become Mswati’s 11th wife. She also alleged that Zena had been kept against her will at a guesthouse. When security guards at the guesthouse refused to accept an order by Justice Stanley Sapire that she should be released in her mother’s custody, lawyers for the mother applied for a contempt of court order against the police, which Sapire refused.
Instead, he ordered two court messengers to visit the girl and establish if she was being kept at the guesthouse against her will.
”I am happy with everything and I have even been taken shopping. I am now preparing to take my place in the royal household and become a good wife to my husband,” she said.
Zena was spotted by members of the public at a busy shopping mall in Ezulwini, 10 kilometres outside the capital of Mbabane and according to eyewitnesses, she appeared relaxed and enjoying every moment.
Zena’s mother, Lindiwe Dlamini, said she still regarded the information as hearsay and would wait to be informed in court. The case is scheduled to resume in the Mbabane High Court on Tuesday when the two officers of the court are expected to report the result of the interview they held with Zena over the weekend. King Mswati III was reported by the local media over the weekend to have gone to the guesthouse immediately after his return from a two-week tour of Qatar, Thailand and Botswana, and that he was currently staying there. – Sapa-DPA