News / Crime
Shrien Dewani: Judge throws out murder case
Shrien Dewani, the Bristol businessman accused of arranging the murder of his new bride on their honeymoon in South Africa, is free to come home after a judge threw out the case against him.
Dewani, a care home boss from Westbury-on-Trym, had fought for more than three years to avoid facing a trial in South Africa.
Despite losing his extradition fight, Judge Jeanette Traverso today accepted an application to throw out the case, saying the evidence of the prosecution’s chief witnesses were “so full of contradictions, that I can ignore their evidence”.
Traverso tore apart the state’s case in a ruling that lasted more than two hours. Among her key points she said:
- The men found guilty of the murder of Anni Dewani were “self confessed liars who continued to lie to this court”.
- The evidence of the hitman Mziwamadoda Qwabe “disintegrated into a garbled mess”.
- Evidence from the gang was “of such a poor quality that we don’t know where the lies end and the truth begins”.
Despite admitting that the credibility of the witnesses was not a key factor when deciding on the dismissal of a trial at this stage, the lack of credibility of their evidence was.
She said that while the gang were “amateurs in arranging a murder, none of them would take part in a crime like this for just a few thousands rand”.
The inference she said was inescapable: “They anticipated that there would be more in it for them.”
She added that there was little prospect of Dewani implicating himself in the crime.
Meanwhile, she said she could not allow public opinion and the desire of Anni’s family to see justice done to influence her decision.
Anni Dewani died in a car hijacking in Gugulethu township near Cape Town in November 2010, just two weeks after her marriage to Shrien.
Her husband was under suspicion soon after with taxi driver Zola Robert Tongo admitted the murder in a plea bargain, and was sentenced on December 7, 2010 to 18 years in jail. Mziwamadoda Qwabe pleaded guilty to her murder in August 2012 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Xolile Mngeni, 23, was convicted of her murder on 19 November 2012, and sentenced to life in jail.
Dewani spent three years fighting extradition to South Africa to face charges that he arranged the murder soon after he arrived on his honeymoon.
He was treated for depression in a private hospital in Bristol but was transferred to South Africa earlier this year.
He had always denied the charges and the judge today brought an end to the long-running case.
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