SA police chief who called Brit-Indian honeymooner ‘a monkey’ calls himself “legally illiterate”

LONDON - South African police chief General Bheki Cele who had branded the Brit-Indian honeymooner Shrien Dewani ‘a monkey’ for allegedly going all the way to Cape Town to have his wife killed, has admitted that he is “legally illiterate”.

General Cele has been making controversial comments about the case, and in the latest move, he appeared to explain why he has passed public comment on the high-profile case.

“I’m completely legally illiterate - so I don’t deal with legal matters,” Cele told South African radio station Eyewitness News.

According to the Daily Mail, the outspoken police commissioner’s comments could prejudice the case against Dewani, who is facing extradition to South Africa.

However, a respected anti-corruption campaign group slammed his comments and his ignorance of the law he is meant to uphold.

“Anybody who is legally illiterate has absolutely no business being chief of police. Ignorance of the law is simply not a defence in a court of law. It’s no different for the chief of police as it is for anyone else. Bheki Cele is like a loose cannon who seems to open his mouth to change feet,” the paper quoted advocate Paul Hoffman, Director of South Africa’s Institute for Accountability, as saying.

Dewani’s wife Anni was killed in November last year after the taxi the couple was travelling in was hijacked as it passed through a poor township outside Cape Town.

Although four South Africans have been arrested in connection with the murder, and one sentenced to 18 years in jail, the country’s police force insists that the plot was masterminded by Dewani himself.

Thirty-one-year-old Dewani is currently at home in Britain, from where he is fighting his extradition case.

His spokesman has said that General Cele’s comments clearly indicate that Dewani would not receive a fair trial in South Africa. (ANI)