Citing lack of evidence, S-African court lets Dewani murder accused walk free

Cape Town: British-Indian millionaire Shrien Dewani, accused of plotting the murder of his Indo-Swedish bride during their honeymoon here in 2010, was acquitted on Monday as a South African court dismissed the case against him, citing lack of evidence. Judge Jeanette Traverso threw out the high-profile case against 34-year-old Dewani even before he started his defence against the accusation that he plotted to kill his 28-year-old wife Anni. Traverso said the prosecution’s case against Dewani was weak and that she can see no reasonable prospect that she might find him guilty once she has also heard his defence. The evidence presented by the prosecution fell “far below the threshold” of what a reasonable court could convict on, the judge ruled. She said the evidence of the prosecution’s main witness, taxi driver Zola Tongo, was “riddled with contradictions” and “highly debatable”. [caption id=“attachment_260146” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Shiren Dewani. Reuters[/caption] Prosecutors in the six-week-long trial said Dewani was a closet homosexual, and “needed to find a way out” of his marriage. Dewani admitted at the start of the trial that he is bisexual and visited male bondage prostitutes. But he also insisted that he loved his new wife Anni and had no hand in what happened. Traverso, the second most senior in the province, has made no secret of her dismay at the prosecution case. She1 rejected evidence about Dewani’s sexuality as “irrelevant” and repeatedly lambasted the prosecutors leading it. Dewani is accused of hiring three men – taxi driver Zola Tongo, Mziwamadoda Qwabe and Xolile Mngeni – to kill Anni on their honeymoon in South Africa in 2010. Mngeni was sentenced to life in prison for the murder but died in jail. Qwabe was sentenced to 25 years. Tongo was sentenced to 18 years following a plea bargain deal. Shrien lost a four-year legal battle in the UK to avoid extradition to South Africa, and was sent in April to stand trial. Dewani is now free to return to Britain immediately. Announcing her ruling, Western Cape High Court Deputy Judge Traverso said: “The accused is found not guilty of this charge.” Traverso said his application was granted and he was thus found not guilty on five charges. She said the only reason not to grant the application would be in the hope that Dewani would implicate himself if he gave evidence. But to do so would be a “manifest misdirection”, the judge said. Dewani walked out of the dock and down the stairs to the holding cell without any expression on his face. His family burst into tears and embraced each other after the verdict. Traverso spent the first two sessions of the morning highlighting in great detail, the inconsistencies in the evidence of the state’s key witness, taxi driver Tongo, who is now serving out a jail term after a plea bargain with the state. The entire story as told by Tongo is highly improbable, Traverso said. The jugde said that she understood the plight of the Anni Hindocha’s family, who had wanted Dewani to take the stand to get closure on the death of their daughter, she could not succumb to public opinion and had to apply the law. Acknowledging the huge public interest in the case, Traverso said she could not allow public opinion to influence her decision in applying the law, as if courts allow this, it would lead to anarchy. The judge said that even if Dewani had entered the witness box, the state would be left with a weak case that would not pass legal muster. “The court cannot cheery-pick from the evidence – reliable corroboration is required,” Traverso said. She discredited the evidence at the trial by Tongo, adding that the picture became even bleaker by this testimony for the prosecution’s case. Dewani’s legal team brought an application for his discharge application, if the court believed there was no credible evidence at the close of the prosecution’s case. Dewani’s trial started in October after he returned to Cape Town a few months earlier and spent time in an institution for monitoring his mental health. Dewani had fought a lengthy legal battle to avoid extradition to South Africa. A clearly disappointed Hindocha family left the court immediately. PTI