THE PLOT THICKENS::::
SHRIEN Dewani: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at the murder of Anni Dewani in the news – Mr Dewani has been released on £250,000 bail.
South African prosecutor Ben Watson tells the High Court, “the net was closing in.” He lobbied against bail “even on the most stringent conditions“.
Zola Tongo, the taxi driver already jailed, claims in his statement (read it in full here), that Dewani paid him to arrange the murder. His claim has seen seven years knocked off a 25 year sentence,
The claim states that he got the impression Mr Dewani has done similar before. No proof. Not a shred of evidence. But, still, IOL, a South African site, introduces the name Dr Pox Raghavjee, a Port Elizabeth doctor murdered in October 2007.
No motive for the murder was ever established as his cellphone, watch and wallet with R500 were found on the scene.
A “source” tells us:
“Soon after the murder of Dr Pox, his wife went and stayed in Cape Town where she was said to be grieving and it is understood that she had visited the mother city before the murder as well.”
The wife is called Heather Raghavjee. The site says she…
“…has close ties to Dewani and his family. She travelled with King Williamstown businessman Peter Dhaya to Cape Town on the Monday after Anni was killed to comfort Dewani.“Shrien’s father and family were here (King Williamstown) last December and that is how Heather came to know and befriend the family because my family hosted them,” Dhaya confirmed to the Saturday Star’s sister newspaper, the Weekend Argus, yesterday.
The police chief has already labelled Shrien Dewani a monkey and pretty much stated that he’s got his man. Now we get to hear from police spokesperson Captain Thozama Solani. Says:
“The case had always been open and remained a mystery to us because even though there was a R100 000 reward offered there were no leads, but in light of the new information we are putting all we have got in solving the case.”
Mr shrien Dewani needs his brief.
Clare Montgomery, his QC, says:.
“It would be grotesque to remand a man like this in custody. It is a flimsy case (against him] that relies on the words of self-confessed robbers and murderers.”
Says she:
His lawyer, Clare Montgomery QC, said he had been accused by a group of “self-confessed robbers and murderers desperate to escape a whole life sentence” and with “everything to gain and nothing to lose” by implicating him in the killing.
This is all big news in south Africa. John Dobson writes:
This week the nation sighed in relief at the news that Shrien Dewani had been accused of ordering, like the linefish of the day, the murder of his bride, Anni.Firstly, if the driver’s claims are true, it is sad that we were the destination of choice to arrange this. I suppose it would have been harder to sell Bogota or the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez to your wife than trendy Cape Town as the venue for your honeymoon.The fact that one could possibly arrange a hit so readily and easily, as did Dina Rodrigues (one trip to Milnerton taxi rank to remove Baby Jordan) and Najwa Pietersen, inter many alia, is a poor reflection on our country.
And thirdly, what about the amount that was allegedly paid for Anni’s murder? It seems that three, possibly four, people were involved in the murder of Anni for R15 000, which is hardly a life altering quantum and certainly not enough for that sought-after plasma TV.
And crime is rife in SA:
The crime statistics in Gugulethu are staggering. There have been 700 murders here in the past five years, but many of them happened behind closed doors – they were domestic crimes, not attacks on strangers.
