Lady, lady, why so shady? Here are 5 first ladies and their claim to notoriety

Shiranthi Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka
In 2012, Sri Lankan rugby player Wasim Thajudeen was killed in a car crash. While initially believed to be an accident, the case is now being investigated as a murder. Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s wife Shiranthi Rajapaksa was questioned by the police after a vehicle belonging to her charity was found to have been used in the murder.



Simone Gbagbo, Ivory Coast
Laurent and Simone Gbagbo, former president and first lady of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), a country in West Africa, are being investigated for war crimes and charges connected to the 2011 civil war in which around 3,000 people were killed. Simone was acquitted by an Ivorian court earlier this year. She was tried and convicted in March 2015 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.



Regina Chiluba, Zambia
Regina’s husband and former president of Zambia, Frederick Chiluba, was found guilty of stealing close to $46 million in a civil case in 2007. He has maintained that he is innocent. The former first lady of Zambia was also found gui lty of receiving state funds illegally and was sentenced to threeand-a-half years in prison. The verdict was overturned by the country’s high court soon after.

Angélica Rivera, Mexico
The current Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto and his wife Angélica Rivera were embroiled in a scandal in 2014, when it became known that the family was living in Casa La Palma. The mansion, worth millions, was registered under the name of the company that received the government contract to build a bullet train in central Mexico. Rivera apologised and released a video detailing her income as a former soap opera actress and also promised to sell the house.



Patience Jonathan, Nigeria
Ex-president Goodluck Jonathan’s wife Patience’s accounts were frozen by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in November 2016 after the former first lady was embroiled in a corruption scandal. The EFCC said that funds of many millions in her accounts were suspected to be proceeds of crime. Earlier this year, a federal High Court in Lagos cancelled the freeze order.