The Anni Dewani Murder Case

http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/dewani-back-in-city-police-sources-1.878222?showComments=true

Police sources say British millionaire Shrien Dewani has returned to South Africa to identify the men suspected of shooting and killing his wife Anni after a hijacking in Gugulethu.

As rumours abound about the honeymoon murder, police sources close to the case said Dewani, 30, flew into Cape Town on Friday ahead of an identity parade on Saturday, before the case continues on Monday in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court.

It is believed police want to question Dewani further after letting him return to Britain to bury his wife.

Dewani’s lawyer Billy Gundelfinger denied that his client was in South Africa. He said his client had neither been requested to return to South Africa nor had done so voluntarily.

Police crime intelligence spokeswoman Tummi Shai said last night: “We are not saying he is coming and we are not saying he isn’t coming. We said at the press conference that we’re after the big fish. And soon he will tell you himself what he has done. For now though we are not commenting.”

Following the November 13 murder, swift police work led to arrests of shuttle taxi driver Zola Tongo, 31, Xolile Mngeni, 23 and Mziwamadoda Qwabe, 25, on charges of murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping. Tongo has told the court that he wants to enter into a plea deal with the State.

All the suspects will appear on Monday when the State hopes to finalise the driver’s plea and sentencing agreement.

According to the charge sheet, “the murder was planned and premeditated… acting in the furtherance of a common purpose of conspiracy”.

This week, Dewani hired South African divorce and celebrity lawyer Gundelfinger to represent him in this country and Britain’s top PR firm Max Clifford amid his concerns that he was being set up by South African police to be blamed for his wife’s brutal slaying.

In a statement issued through Clifford, Shrien’s brother Preyen Dewani said: “He (Shrien) is fully aware of the false accusations and the possibility that by attaching blame to him the people may divert this matter away from concerns over the security of South Africa. Both the Dewani and Hindocha family want to see justice being done and as you can imagine it is a difficult time for everyone.”

But Dewani has in the days since the murder made contradictory statements to British tabloid The Sun regarding what happened.

He first told the paper they went into the township because Anni wanted to see the “real Africa”. Days later he told the tabloid that the driver had advised them to go to see some “African dancing” in Gugulethu.

Meanwhile, in this week’s You magazine Anni’s two siblings spoke of their loss and shock and how she spent months planning every detail of her wedding to her fiancé. There were five ceremonies over three days in Mumbai in India and a guest list of 300 people. She had travelled to India to make the arrangement before the wedding and the poverty she saw upset her and led to her make generous donations to orphanages.

The couple had met 13 months before in England when Anni was visiting relatives. She lived in Sweden.

“It was love at first sight,” her sister, Ami Denborg, 33, an engineer in Stockholm, told You. “We were very close. We shared all our secrets and got up to a lot of mischief together.”

She loved parties and showered people with gifts. “She was beautiful inside and out; although she was not materialistic her flat in Stockholm was furnished with only the best. “

Anni’s younger brother, Anish Hindocha, 22, an engineering student, told You how protective and “loving” Anni was. “If someone upset me she didn’t think twice about giving them a piece of her mind.” She always ended a message with, “I love you more than anyone else in the world.” - Weekend Argus
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Why has he not attended the ID Parade?
This does not seem like the actions of a man whose bride has been murdered.
I would want revenge and take action to be very involved in identfying the scum involed.
 
/Roadrunner said:
Why has he not attended the ID Parade?
This does not seem like the actions of a man whose bride has been murdered.
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Is there a report in the media that he did not attend the ID parade?

The latest info (which I posted above) is that he is in SA to attend the ID parade.
 
Drama as husband avoids ID parade

The plot thickens :)

The husband of murdered honeymoon bride Anni Dewani did not attend a police identity parade yesterday, where witnesses pointed out three men arrested for the gruesome crime.

This was despite an impassioned plea by the murdered 28-year-old bride's family earlier this week for Shrien Dewani, 30, to return to South Africa to help police identify his wife's killers.

The identity parade was held in Cape Town amid an international storm of claim and counter-claim over whether Dewani is a suspect in the killing.

Anni's uncle Ashok Hindocha told The Telegraph this week: "All the Hindocha family want is to know by whom and for what our girl was murdered. I can tell you, if it was my wife who was murdered I would jump into a plane, go there and ask those people, 'Why did you kill my wife and for what?' This is a question that not only the Hindocha family but millions of people around the world would like to know."

But police hinted that Dewani's presence at yesterday's identity parade was not vital.

The Sunday Times has established that the lead investigator in the case has been replaced by a new team of detectives. Dewani has given differing accounts of what happened on the night two weeks ago when the couple were apparently hijacked in a taxi in Guguletu, Cape Town. Anni was shot in the neck.
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If he indeed did plot to kill his wife, I hope they send him to Pollsmore - where he'll find a new wife.
 
Clearly he's guilty. A south african prison is too good for this guy who tarnished our near perfect tourist safety record to push his ugly agenda.
 
blonde one said:
It seems the couple were not as happy as the husband is making it out to be :confused:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-tears-honeymoon-flight-according-father.html
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Very interesting is the allegation that, when a SAPS officer asked Dewani if he knew the registration number of the vehicle, he said no, but he could get it by calling his family in London??????

This now implies that the shuttle was booked before they even left for South Africa, or that his family booked it for him and informed him of the details of the shuttle.

Odd.
 
So a woman is in tears while in the company of her husband, that sounds rather normal to me. The damn things are too unpredictable and emotional so where is the crime in that :)
 
More twist in the tale:

http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/dewanis-weren-t-married-1.950821
London - Walking arm in arm by the warm Indian Ocean that Saturday evening, the “honeymoon” couple might have felt they made the perfect choice when they came to South Africa for this most romantic of holidays.

Yet, just a few hours later, Anni Hindocha would be dead, executed with a bullet to the back of her head, while the man she loved was left to make sense of a murder that has become the subject of intense speculation across the globe.

The controversy has involved the couple’s relatives and friends from four countries – Britain, South Africa, Sweden and India – as well as, bizarrely, PR man Max Clifford.

At the centre of this tragedy is Anni, 28, whose body was flown to Britain and cremated.

Her father, Vinod Hindocha, has described how he fought back his emotions when he saw his daughter lying in her coffin: ‘My girl was so pretty. She looked calmly asleep and in peace. There was not a scratch visible on her face. I was so relieved about that.’

As for the man described as Anni’s husband, Shrien Dewani, 30, he is reportedly under sedation at his West Country home.

A wealthy businessman from Bristol who runs a series of care homes, he is receiving counselling after bringing Anni’s body back to Britain.

He is also in constant touch with Clifford, whom he has hired for advice, but last week was refusing all media requests for an interview.

Inexplicably, Shrien, an accountant by training, has not been called back to South Africa by police to attend an identity parade of three men who have been charged with kidnap, robbery and murder.

Even as Shrien keeps his counsel, though, the list of nagging inconsistencies surrounding Anni’s death grows.

Not least among them is the fact that the lavish £200 000 “marriage” they went through in Mumbai in November in front of 300 guests was never officially registered there, or indeed anywhere else in the world.

In other words, the honeymooners were never honeymooners at all.

The Mumbai “wedding” ceremony, apparently so carefully planned by Shrien, is not recognised as a formal marriage in law.

The Daily Mail has confirmed with the British High Commission in Delhi that the union was never registered in India, and therefore would not have been recognised in either Britain or Sweden.

From his home in Sweden, Anni’s father confirmed: “My wife and I are Anni’s closest relatives – not Shrien. She was not formally married to Shrien.

“According to the authorities (in Britain and Sweden), Anni was still Miss Hindocha when she died.

“The marriage registration was not going to happen until March next year, when Anni had her birthday in Britain and they switched rings, which is our custom.”

Then there is the intriguing letter, sent last week to the Mail from people claiming to be Anni’s friends, which asks troubling questions about Anni’s late-night abduction in Gugulethu.

The letter, signed by “the devoted friends and acquaintances of our beloved Anni”, says she knew Nigeria and Kenya well, contradicting Shrien’s suggestion that she had never been to Africa before.

“It is beyond comprehension that Anni suggested seeing ‘the real Africa’ in such a dangerous area at such a late hour,’ says the letter. “She was an intelligent and smart girl.”

The letter adds: “We believe the South African investigation may be a whitewash, and Anni’s demise is highly mysterious.”



So, what really happened to Anni, the girl who looked so happy in her “wedding” photos a few weeks earlier?

Having studied as an engineer in Sweden, where she grew up, she met Shrien in September last year after travelling to the UK to visit relatives.

It has emerged that, at the time, Shrien had just abruptly cancelled plans for a wedding to Rani Kansagra, the daughter of the London-based multi-millionaire founder of Indian budget airline SpiceJet.

Shrien says he fell for Anni at first sight, and within weeks he had proposed to her.

In February of this year, Anni left her job at the Swedish cellphone giant Ericsson in Stockholm, and was preparing to move to Bristol to help organise their ceremony in Mumbai, where both had relatives.

A friend of Shrien says: “It was a lavish event at an expensive hotel which has lawns running down to a lake. Guests flew in from London with Shrien and Anni. Everyone believed they were a couple made for each other.”

On the flight back home to London, it appears the couple were not on speaking terms.

A woman claiming to be an air hostess on the flight has said that Anni looked unhappy and was in tears.

“One of my colleagues brought her some tissues,” she recalls. “The couple did not speak one word to each other during the nine-hour flight.”

This account was posted on a website and written under the hostess’s first name.

True or not, a few days later, Anni and Shrien flew off again, this time on honeymoon to South Africa.

They first went to the Kruger National Park, before going on to the Cape Grace hotel in Cape Town.

It had been booked by Shrien’s secretary in London, who, according to him, had also arranged for a taxi driver in a silver VW Sharan people-carrier to pick them up from the airport on Friday, November 12. The driver was Zola Tongo.



At the end of the journey from the airport to the hotel, Shrien took Tongo’s cellphone number and promised to call him if he and Anni wanted to take a trip.

The next day

Shrien asked Tongo to collect them at 7.30pm to take them on a sightseeing tour of Cape Town.



The couple was driven around the city, and what happened next is unclear. Shrien says that he asked Tongo to drive to Somerset West. It was already 8.30pm.

Shrien had booked a table at 96 Winery Road, but when the couple arrived, he says they thought it was too formal.

So they decided to head for the more informal Surfside Restaurant, in the Strand. The couple asked Tongo to wait while they took a walk by the sea. By 9.30, they were eating sushi and curry.

Soon after ten, Shrien and Anni set off back to the Cape Grace hotel.

Details of exactly what followed have varied. What is known is that the vehicle was driven to Gugulethu, where it was attacked; Shrien was put out of it, and the hijackers drove off with Anni, who was subsequently found murdered.

So, what will happen next in this most intriguing and tragic of cases?

The Mail and Guardian recently reported that Shrien “will be arrested and charged” in connection with Anni’s murder if he returns to the country, a suggestion rejected by Max Clifford.

If correct, this would be an extraordinary course for the investigation to take.

In the meantime, Tongowill return to court this week to face charges over her death, along with two men from Khayelitsha.

Those two are claiming they were tortured by police into making a confession that they killed Anni.

Meanwhile, back in Bristol, Shrien – who says there was no insurance policy covering Anni’s life, so he does not stand to make a penny from her death – remains silent, grieving for the woman he loved, and awaiting instruction from Clifford. – Daily Mail
O
 
and now for something totally different....


The 28-year-old engineering graduate was killed in Cape Town last month when two men smashed their way into the car she and her husband Shrien were travelling in.

The driver was later charged with murder, leading to suspicions that the attack may have been planned.

Sources involved in the case suggested Swedish-born Mrs Dewani could have been sexually assaulted, a claim repeatedly denied by South African police until now.

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On Sunday it emerged that police also now believe she may have been shot accidentally as her abductors argued over whether or not to rape her.

They say the ballistics report has now concluded that the angle at which a single bullet entered her neck suggested the fatal shot had not been fired deliberately.

Instead it is believed one of the two gunmen who kidnapped her may have accidentally pulled the trigger during a physical scuffle as the pair argued.

Police sources have told The Daily Telegraph that a preliminary autopsy report indicated Mrs Dewani had suffered horrific injuries pointing to sexual assault.

"It was noted that her clothing had been removed and that she showed signs of serious trauma,” the source said.

"There were obvious signs of a struggle and of violence before her death."

Witnesses who saw Mrs Dewani's body as it lay in the back of the abandoned taxi have also cast doubt that she had not been sexually assaulted.

Mr Dewani, a businessman from Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, has repeatedly denied any involvement in the November 13 car jacking.

Xolile Mngeni, 23, Mzwamadoda Qwabe, 26 and the driver, Zola Tongo, 31 have been charged with murder and kidnapping after being arrested within days of the killing. Mr Mngeni and Mr Qwabe claim they were assaulted by police.

A court has heard that Mr Tongo is considering entering a plea bargain deal with prosecutors. They are due to appear in court on Monday.

It has also emerged that Mr Dewani’s Johannesburg-based lawyer Billy Gundelfinger has withdrawn from the case.

Max Clifford, who is representing Mr Dewani, said his client was at home in Britain under sedation and receiving medical attention and trauma counselling.

He confirmed that Mr Gundelfinger had withdrawn from the case after “perfectly amiable” discussions with the family.

“It was the family that made the decision because all he was really doing was fielding calls from the media and there was nothing for him to do and they really did not want an expensive lawyer to do that,” he said.

“Of course if there are any circumstances that require his services he will be back on the case.”
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...y-assaulted-before-murder-police-believe.html
 
Geez that IOL 'story' is a good example of the k a k journos and papers who make their money selling You/Heat sleaze-rag type of reporting.
 
I don't think Dewani will be nailed here. There will now be separate trials for the driver & the gunmen. This may well mean the cops didn't have enough evidence on the gunmen for a conviction meaning the driver wouldn't need to rat on Dewani if he's involved. He only needs to testify against the other 2, and if they were well paid for the job the driver can just say he was asked to bring some meat. Looks like Leigh Matthews all over again.
 
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