National police commissioner Bheki Cele says he is "confident" that British honeymoon tourist Shrien Dewani will be extradited to South Africa "to answer charges for his possible involvement" in the murder of his wife, Anni.
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National Police Commissioner Bheki Cele
Photograph by: Trevor Samson
Photograph by: Trevor Samson
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But, in an exclusive interview with The Times, Cele said claims that Dewani will not be fairly treated were "devoid of logic".
"Let him come back and allow our courts to determine the case. We are confident that we handled the case professionally and we are confident that Dewani will be extradited back to the country," he said.
"Because of perceptions about our country, some people still think that our police officers are not capable of handling sophisticated crimes."
Cele has come under fire from the British press for calling Dewani a "monkey" for allegedly masterminding his wife's murder in Cape Town.
London's Daily Mail reported that his "monkey" label might anger South Africa's Indian community.
"There has been a lot of noise about my 'monkey' comments. What people should understand is that we attach different meanings to what we say. The 'monkey' remark was not directed at Shrien Dewani but at any foreigner who comes to South Africa hoping to commit crime in the hope that they would not be caught out," he said.
"We have the capacity and those who take chances are in for a shock. I am disappointed that certain public commentators in South Africa have chosen to jump on the bandwagon that was deliberately manufactured by someone in the UK to divert attention from the brutal fact that an innocent young woman was brutally mowed down at the prime of her life, all for a lousy R15000. Why?
"I am not going to stop talking or using some words because I might offend some people. This is who I am."
British tabloid The Sun reported yesterday that Dewani asked for a refund on his dead wife's plane ticket five days after she was murdered.
Dewani went home three days after his wife was killed. She was in a coffin on the same flight.
A British Airways source told the tabloid: "Mr Dewani did not call in person but a request was received for a refund of the return fare from Cape Town. A proportion of the cost was refunded to him."
And, in a further twist, London's Daily Mail reported that a male prostitute has been questioned by police after he claimed to have had sex with Dewani.
The 39-year-old German man called Scotland Yard and claimed that Dewani paid him nearly R12000 for three sex sessions between September last year and April.
But Clifford said the claims were "ludicrous".
A Scotland Yard source told the newspaper: "We are leaving all the investigations to the South Africans."
