SA prosecutor accused of ’sabotaging’ Brit-Indian honeymooners case with ‘fugitive’ comments
By ANIMonday, February 21, 2011
LONDON - The family of the Brit-Indian millionaire charged with masterminding his wife’s murder during their honeymoon in Cape Town last year have accused the South African prosecuting authority’s head of deliberately sabotaging Shrien Dewani’s case by calling him a ‘murderer’ and ‘fugitive’.
In a television interview, the Director of South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority, Menzi Simelane, had claimed that Dewani had “murdered his wife when he should have been celebrating his honeymoon”.
“As a matter of fact, Mr Dewani is a fugitive because he ran away. He ran out of a country where there was a warrant of arrest for him. So as a fugitive, we then informed Interpol that we would like an international arrest warrant issued for him. So he was flagged internationally and he can’t go anywhere, basically,” he added.
Dewani’s family, however, have expressed fears through its close source ‘The Sun’ by saying that his comments could be a deliberate attempt to weaken his extradition case.
“We are confident that we can answer all the so-called evidence that the South African police have got. So what are they doing? Is it possible that they are trying to deliberately sabotage their own case because they want their extradition attempt to fail? That way they could continue to claim that Shrien is guilty, while he would not be able to prove them wrong in court,” The Telegraph quoted the source, as saying.
This is not the first time that such comments have been made by South African senior officials against Dewani. The country’s chief of police, Bheki Cele, had already labelled Dewani “a monkey who came all the way from London to murder his wife here”.
Dewani is accused of offering to pay 1,300 pounds to two hitmen to murder his wife, Anni, in a fake hijacking outside Cape Town on November 13 last year. He has denied all allegations against him, and is currently in Britain preparing for an extradition hearing to be held in May this year.
The Indian-origin business tycoon’s lawyers are expected to highlight the South African police’s public comments on the case as proof that Dewani cannot get a fair trial in South Africa, the paper said. (ANI)
