Grace Mugabe, wife of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, beat up a British photographer in Hong Kong while her bodyguard held him down. That was enough for Mugabe to earn herself Foolocracy’s “Fool of the Week” award.

Mugabe, who was visiting her daughter, a student in Hong Kong, was living her usual high lifestyle. The photographer sought to point that out as a contrast with the dire straits haunting most of Zimbabwe’s people. A cholera epidemic there has killed 2,200 and inflation is pegged at an underreported 231 million percent.

Mugabe ordered her bodyguard to hold photographer Richard Jones down as she pummeled him with diamond-encrusted rings on her fingers.

“She directed several punches into my face,” Jones said. “She was wearing diamond-encrusted rings, which caused a lot of lacerations.”

What a class act the Mugabes are.

AP reported that Mugabe didn’t let the incident interfere with her important duties as First Lady.

Despite the country’s political and economic difficulties, Grace Mugabe went ahead with a vacation in Asia, spending time in the Malaysian island resort Langkawi and Singapore before arriving in Hong Kong, The Sunday Times said. Robert Mugabe joined his wife in Singapore for a few days, the newspaper said.

News24.com reported this blow-by-blow:

Jones was about six metres away from Mugabe when she told her bodyguard to attack him, said Michael Sheridan, The Sunday Times correspondent who joined the photographer seconds after the assault.

“The bodyguard grabbed Mr Jones, wrestled with him, attempted to take his camera. He then held him while Mrs Mugabe struck him in the face repeatedly,” Sheridan said.

“She was completely deranged, absolutely raging with anger,” Jones, chief photographer of Hong Kong-based Sinopix photo agency, told AFP.

Afterwards, a police report was filed. Police spokeswoman Odelia Tam said police were investigating but did not know the identity of the attacker.

That’s a hard one to believe. Of course, by then it didn’t matter. Mugabe was out of the country.