Harare/Johannesburg - A Lebanese woman, arrested last month
in the company of a Zimbabwean government official while trying to
smuggle diamonds through Harare International Airport, has been fined
the equivalent of 84,000 US dollars, reports said Monday.
Thirty-six-year-old Carole Georges El Martni was sentenced to an
18-month prison term or a fine of 16,456,105 Zimbabwe dollars for
being in illegal possession of diamonds, plus a 4,936,830 dollar
penalty for attempting to smuggle them to Dubai, the state-controlled
Herald reported.
A further five-year jail term was wholly suspended on condition
she does not commit a similar offence.
Although officially worth more than 21 million Zimbabwe dollars,
the fine is worth just 840 US dollars on the unofficial but widely
used parallel market rate for foreign currency.
The Lebanese woman was arrested on March 1 in the company of
William Nhara, the principal director in the ministry without
portfolio, who was trying to help her to get past the airport
officials.
An x-ray machine at the airport had picked up the diamonds in her
hand luggage. She pleaded guilty to the charges. The diamonds have
been forfeited to the state.
Nhara, who is reported to have pleaded for clemency from President
Robert Mugabe, is still in custody.
Zimbabwe's central bank chief last week said the cash-strapped
economy had in the last nine months lost around 400 million US
dollars worth in potential earnings from the smuggling of diamonds
from a rich source in eastern Zimbabwe.
The diamond fields of Marange have been plundered by fortune-
seekers after the government cancelled a claim to the area by an
international mining firm and allowed impoverished villagers to take
matters into their own hands.
The free-for-all also attracted miners and dealers from outside
the country.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
Your Talkback on this Story