18th November
The body of murdered British tourist Anni Dewani was flown out of the country last night as police interrogated a man believed to be linked to her killing.
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DEATH CORNER: The junction of Klipfontein Road and Johnson Qona Street, in Gugulethu, where British honeymooners Shrien and Anni Dewani were hijacked before Anni was murdered
Community co-operated with police
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A family friend of the Dewanis, who travelled from King Williams Town, Eastern Cape, to support the "extremely devastated" family yesterday, said preparations were under way for her funeral in Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol.
"The family is shattered ... there are so many questions. Why them? Why did they have to kill her? She was such a beautiful woman," said Peter Dhaya.
Dhaya and Heather Raghavjee drove to Cape Town on Monday morning after Prakash Dewani told them of his daughter-in-law's murder.
Dhaya and Raghavjee have both been victims of crime - he has been the victim of several armed robberies and Raghavjee's husband, a doctor, was shot dead three years ago.
Dhaya met Prakash Dewani through Raghavjee last year when Dewani visited Eastern Cape.
"They are lovely people and they don't deserve this. Losing your wife so soon after getting married is tragic," said Dhaya.
Anni, 28, a Swedish-born engineer who had been married for less than two weeks to Shrien, 31, was found murdered in Khayelitsha on Saturday night.
By late last night there was still confusion about whether the suspect, a 26-year-old Khayelitsha man, had been taken in for questioning or had been arrested and charged with the couple's hijacking and Anni's murder.
Investigating officer Captain Frederick van Wyk said the man was apprehended by the police early yesterday . At 6pm , he was still being interrogated.
Van Wyk said: "Several leads are currently being followed in a bid to solve the case."
But Western Cape community safety MEC Albert Fritz said the police made a "major breakthrough" when they "arrested" the man during the early hours of yesterday morning.
He said the arrest was largely due to community co-operation.
"The speedy turnaround time in which this matter was investigated is commendable. The fact that community members co-operated with the police is testimony to the confidence the public has in the police. This is a classic example of community safety in action," Fritz said.
A post mortem has been conducted on Anni's body. This will determine whether she was sexually assaulted.
The case has been extensively covered in the British media - by Sky News, The Times of London and the tabloids, including The Sun and Daily Mail.
Western Cape economic development and tourism MEC Alan Winde said a tourism safety and support team had been assigned to the family.
"A team in the province is on hand 24/7 and has been assisting Mr Dewani as much as possible with emotional, medical and logistical support," he said.
Shrien, who runs the family's chain of nursing homes, told British newspapers they spent Saturday touring vineyards in the Cape and then went out for dinner.
Anni said she wanted to have a look at "the real Africa" after they had dinner in Somerset West, so they asked their taxi driver to detour into a township on the way back to their luxury Cape Grace hotel.
But the driver got lost and the Volkswagen Sharan was hijacked by two armed men in Gugulethu.
The driver was forced out of the car and the Dewanis were driven off at high speed.
"They put a gun in my ear and pulled back the trigger. It really was the stuff of movies," Dewani told London's Daily Mail.
"The two men kept saying: 'We are not going to hurt you. We just want the car'. That was a lie.
"Most of the conversation in the car was us pleading to be dumped together. I held onto Anni as I said to them, 'If you're not going to hurt her, why don't you let us go'?"
Dewani said the men forced him out of the rear passenger window in the township and said they would release Anni - who Dewani said "loved life and was always happy" - a few minutes later.
Anni was later found with three bullets in her chest in the back seat of the taxi in nearby Khayelitsha.
Anni was of Ugandan-Asian descent and had worked until February for Ericsson in the Swedish capital,
Stockholm.
