There was an elaborate plot to kill Robert Mugabe at the FIFA World Cup Final in South Africa by breaking his neck, a sports commentator has claimed.
Breaking Mugabe’s neck
UK sports journalist Ned Boulting, 53, said that a security guard for ITV News, a channel in the UK, blamed Mugabe for his brother’s death and that it was his ‘lifetime ambition’ to kill the African leader.
Referring to the man under the pseudonym Peter, he said that the guard had seen his opportunity following the announcement that Mugabe would be a VIP guest at the final in Johannesburg, according to The Times.
Mr Boulting said that Peter told an ITV cameraman that he would ‘snap Mugabe’s neck’- 32 minutes into the second half of the match between Spain and the Netherlands.
Apart from Mugabe, other world famous people who attended the first ever FIFA World Cup on African soil include Monaco’s Prince Albert, Qatari Emir (ruler) Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Nobel peace prize laureate Desmond Tutu and King Mswati of Swaziland, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
Meetings with opposition MDC
Sports journalist Ned Boulting said it was man’s lifetime ambition to kill Mugabe. The man blamed Mugabe for his brother’s death and was going to snap his neck.
Speaking on The Never Strays Far podcast, he explained that the man had claimed he had meetings with some Zimbabwean opposition (MDC) leaders and the British foreign secretary at the time in Cape Town.
Mr Boulting said: ‘He had basically been hired, potentially, to carry out the assassination, and still wanted to do it.
“The cameraman I was working with said ‘You can do it, but we’ve got to agree a time’, because he had a pitch side position behind one of the goals and all the cameramen were focusing on the football.”
The man was going to get into the royal box and jump Robert Mugabe and snap his neck, according to Mr Boulting.
