Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The Dewani Defence : Knight Takes Queen

Wednesday, December 22, 2010   |  Comments: 6
While the process to extradite Shrien Dewani, the British businessman alleged to have murdered his wife while on honeymoon in South Africa, gathers momentum the family have gone on a legal and media offensive to reclaim the moral high ground.

Under the shrewd eye of publicist Max Clifford they have highlighted areas which they believe prove that the charges are ludicrous.

In no particular order :

The family have released a video of the wedding which shows that the couple were very much in love. This works on a number of levels including, but not limited to, creating serious doubt as to the motive, undermining claims that Dewani is gay and demonstrating that within a short time frame it is unlikely that he would have gone from loving husband to murderer.

In respect of the gay allegations themselves these have been vehemently denied by Shrien’s friends and family. In addition Dewani has rejected the allegations of gay escort, Leopold Leisser, saying that he has evidence to prove he was not in Birmingham or London at the time when these were supposed to have occurred.

Which brings the issue of motive into focus – There are serious reservations about the fact that Dewani has no clear motive for killing Anni Dewani.

While suggestions are being made that his companies may have been in financial trouble these are by no means definitive. Instead they show that certain entities could have been under pressure without real access to the overall financial picture. Losses may be down to tax or a refusal of healthier companies to bail out the ailing entities during the global financial crisis.

In addition the Dewani family are pointing to the fact that Shrien had nothing to gain financially from his wife’s death.

Accordingly they are asking why – if he is not gay and there was no financial motive – would he murder his wife?

With regard to his early departure the submissions are that he was doing so in cooperation with the police and was never a suspect until the allegations of driver Zola Tongo emerged. In fact neither he nor Tongo were people of interests at the time but rather victims.

They point to the allegations of torture made by two other accused who say that they only gave statements to the police after being coerced into doing so.

This along with his fears that police are setting him up to take the fall for a murder he did not commit in order to ease the international view of the threat to tourists visiting South Africa. As evidence of this they highlight the extraordinary “monkey remarks” made by police chief General Bheki Cele.

The CCTV images showing his alleged handover of money to Tongo three days after the murder are, according to the family, payment for ordinary services rendered by Tongo to the couple and not for the reasons suggested by South African authorities.

As further proof of the concerns of the Dewanis regarding the South African police they point to the fact that they contacted a South African private investigator Dave Miller after the hijacking but before Anni’s body was discovered. In addition reports suggest that “new evidence found and expert advice from the ballistics and forensics experts commissioned by Mr Dewani’s defence team it is understood that a single bullet which killed Mrs Dewani had first passed through her hand and then into her neck, eventually severing an artery. The post mortem also revealed that Mrs Dewani’s killer had at one stage grabbed her leg, suggesting she may have struggled and that the gun may have gone off accidentally.” (IOL)

The police have yet to respond to these allegations.

Dewani’s version of events is that the couple while on honeymoon went out for a evening during which they were hijacked. Along the way first Tongo then himself were evicted from the car. He went to raise the alarm and the body of his beloved bride was discovered the following morning.

Events unfolded from there.

The version of a Knight in shining armor who was deprived of the girl of his dreams rather than the contrary view that he is a queen who wanted to be rid of her.


http://www.newstime.co.za/SouthAfrica/The_Dewani_Defence_:_Knight_Takes_Queen/17341/