Tuesday, December 14, 2010

ANNI DEWANI: Father pleads for son in law to go back to South Africa

http://www.bristol247.com/2010/12/14/bristol-bride-murder-father-tells-husband-go-to-south-africa/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The father of murdered bride Anni Dewani has told her Bristol husband Shrien: “Go to South Africa and do it. Let the world know what happened.”

In a phone interview with South African newspaper Cape Times from Sweden, Vinod Hindocha said: “If he’s not guilty, why can’t he just go back?”

Last week, Mr Dewani, 30, from Westbury-on-Trym, was granted bail by a High Court judge, after South African authorities attempted to extradite him for conspiracy to murder Anni, 28, who was found dead in the back of an abandoned taxi in a Cape Town township with gunshot wound to her neck on November 13.
The businessman, whose family runs care home provider PSP Healthcare, has said he will fight extradition, leading his father-in-law to say: “I don’t know why he’s doing that. If he says proudly that he did not do it, then just go back (to Cape Town). Clear the doubts. What’s the big deal?

“Give us justice. That’s what I ask for. Justice for my daughter who was so lively and so innocent.”
He had not spoken to his son-in-law or his relatives in weeks and would not comment on whether he planned to contact them. Hindocha did not plan to go to the UK to be present at court proceedings involving Shrien Dewani.

Meanwhile, a second suspect has reportedly accused Mr Dewani of conspiring to murder his bride on their honeymoon in South Africa.

A hotel receptionist claims he helped hire two gunmen to kill Anni Dewani in the staged carjacking at the request of her husband.

Monde Mbolombo is said to have demanded £450 for organising the murder and said the alleged gunmen should be paid £1,000.

It is understood Mr Mbolombo will be a key state witness in any trial of Mr Dewani after giving a police statement.

He has become the second person to implicate Mr Dewani in a murder conspiracy after taxi driver Zola Tonga alleged the businessman had organised a “hit” on his new wife in a South African court last week.
Tongo made the allegation as part of a plea bargain which saw his jail sentence for his part in arranging the murder reduced from 25 years to 18 years.

The allegations have been denied by Mr Dewani’s publicist Max Clifford, who described the prosecution’s tactics as “simply ridiculous”.

But it has emerged that Mr Dewani has been linked to a similar murder in South Africa three years ago.
Dr Pox Raghavjee was killed by a single gunshot wound to the back of the head in South Africa, and police announced their investigation into any possible link between the two murders as it emerged that Dr Raghavjee’s daughter-in-law was born and brought up in Bristol and is an old family friend of Mr Dewani.
Alvita Raghavjee, a 30-year-old mother of two, went to school in Winterbourne, on the outskirts of Bristol and works as a travel agent for Thomson in the city.

Her parents Navin and Soomitra Manekporia live nearby and her father runs a blinds business, also in Bristol.