Family defend murder accused groom
Shrien Dewani, 30, is accused of hiring a hitman to murder Anni, 28, on their South African honeymoon. The young woman was found dead in the back of an abandoned taxi with a bullet wound to her neck last month.
Starting the fightback against the slurs levelled at Dewani, a close family member said he was speaking out to set the record straight.
He dismissed insinuations of a rift between Anni’s relatives and his own family, saying: “Everyone in both families is stressed out by these spurious allegations and wants justice.
“There are good relations between the families.”
Shrien, the family member said, is torn apart after losing “the woman of his dreams”.
The family spokesman said: “He’s distraught and devastated, he’s lost weight and is completely shaken.
“He’s completely traumatised, he can’t sleep, he can’t eat, he keeps getting flashbacks.”
South African authorities want to extradite the Bristol care home owner, who was granted bail in the British courts earlier this month.
Although his family would not be drawn on whether they believed he would get a fair trial in South Africa, the spokesman hinted that their faith in the system over there had been badly dented.
“Comments from people in positions of seniority, power and influence have served to further confuse and diminish the confidence that the family has,” he said.
“Shrien is not a monkey, a murderer or evil,” he added, referring to remarks that have been attributed to senior police and politicians in the country.
In a bid to dispel the swirl of rumours that has surrounded the case almost from the start, the family rubbished claims that Dewani had been involved in a previous murder in South Africa, that he stood to gain from his wife’s life insurance policy and was having an affair with a gay rent boy.
Describing the love the couple shared, the family member said: “There was no pre-nuptial agreement, no dowry, no pressure from the family.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
