South Africa - Anni Dewani, 28, shot to death, Gugulethu, 13 Nov 2010 #1

[Interested Bystander]

It's way too early for me to have any thoughts on Dewani's guilt or innocence. With OP, initially I thought he was innocent after reading the first headlines about how he thought it was an intruder. I think one paper even suggested that Reeva had paid him a 'surprise' visit, and that's what set everything in motion.

The Dewani case seems more complex, in that would he really be so stupid as to seek someone out he barely knew to murder his wife? I don't think he'd have killed her just to avoid telling his family he'd had gay flings, because he could just have ended the relationship. That would have been much easier, and a hell of lot less risky than arranging her murder.

Looking forward to following the trial with you all.

I totally agree with what you say.

 

[ColonelMustard]

My gut instinct, at least from everything I've seen, read, and heard up until the trial, is that he's guilty as h#ll.

That being said, I'll try to keep an open mind, and/but god only knows the whole thing is so complex even before you get to the murder, that it makes my head spin.

 

[Lux et Veritas]

Another rich, narcissistic sociopath.

I’m keeping my expectations for justice for Anni and her family near the bottom of the barrel.

At most, I expect Oscar Trial - Bollywood Version.

Anything beyond that is cherry icing.

 

[delilah]

What can this mean?

"In an attempt to shorten the proceedings I have made a number of admissions in terms of section 220 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1977..."

Dewani statement para 106

 

[delilah]

Reading Dewani's statement, he does seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time with Tongo, the 'taxi driver', and fuss arsing over getting a better rate for his sterling:

At Joburg airport, he exchanges £200 for rand at the rate of 10.83, and notes that, after commission, he only gets R10.37

he checks the rate at the Cape Grace hotel but it's not good enough

he goes to the shopping mall (without his ppt, meaning he can't change any money and has to go back to the hotel to get it) and exchanges £800 at a rate of R10.30

the next day he gets Tongo to take him to a backstreet money changer and exchanges £1000 at R10.50

He's a millionaire and he's spending his honeymoon getting the best exchange rate he can? Either he's a tight so and so or he had another motive for all this.

 

[PrimeSuspect]

Why would Shrien Dewani have a random taxi driver show them the sights of SA? They were rich, they could have afforded a proper guide to take them around in a luxury car.

Why drive to visit the slums of South Africa in the middle of the night? This is the most damning imo, why not see it during the day if they really wanted to see impoverished residents and their homes.

Poor Anni was unhappy with this marriage from day 1, Shrien was emotionally and physically distant with her but cctv footage of them 3 hours before the murder, he is seen cuddling and caressing her. Anni for once looked happy and relaxed.

So either this was because he wanted Anni to be compliant with this late night drive and he was excited with anticipation of riding himself of her or sadly, he changed towards her and now wanted a physical and loving relationship but unfortunately too late, she got murdered. :thinking: jmo

 

[patCee]

Delilah (sorry reply button didn't work)

It's something to do with the Chain of Custody/Evidence.

http://www.academia.edu/933101/The_chain_of_custody_and_formal_admissions

My guess that one admission is to do with his sexual liaison with the German male prostitute. Sounds as though there are several admissions though.

 

[ColonelMustard]

What further complicates things for me is that in the US, because of the work I do, I've personally known (and still know) many...

- Young South Asian (Indian) women and men

Some have had arranged marriages, some are being pressured into arranged marriages, some want arranged marriages, and some have refused arranged marriages. How their families react to these things is all over the board. How the kids react to their families reactions is all over the board.


- Young bisexual men and young gay men

Some are tops, some are bottoms (Dewani?). Some are into leather/BDSM, some are not. Some of the women are married to women, some the men are married to men. Some of the men are married to women and are out to everyone, including their wives. Some of the men are married to women and are out to everyone, except their wives. Some of the men are married to women and are out ONLY to their wives.


- Combinations

I know young South Asian (Indian) men and women who are straight, gay, lesbian, bi, transexual, transgender, intersex, questioning, etc.. The "marriage" situations are all over the place.

Sometime, I even know the families. Many, if not most, of the parents have had arranged marriages - some happy, some not.


Lastly, I've also had one friend who was a male S&M "Master". What an education I got listening to his stories!

 

[Scand]

Hi, as I have mentioned before, I am just as interested in this trial as the Pistorius one (if not more so). I am on holiday now, so I haven't been able to follow the first day of the trial or read of of the comments on this thread yet. However, I want to check if someone agrees with me that his infertility claim seems a bit suspect (more like an excuse that anything else);

How did he know that he was infertile and needed testosterone therapy? Normally, you would try for a baby for at least 6 months before realising that something is wrong. Had he been trying to get pregnant with someone else before? I don't think so.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[ColonelMustard]

Gotta thank EVERYONE on here that's posting all the action. I really, REALLY appreciate it!!!!

Thanks for ALL you do!

 

[Lux et Veritas]

Two massive advantages Dewani does NOT have is Oscar’s hero-icon status (however now tarnished) and a famous disability at the core of his defense (no, self-induced “PTSD”, “depression” and “anxiety” do not count ... especially the last one).

 

[patCee]

I agree with the comments re the amount of time spent with Tonga, and that he chose him as a guide. He didn't need to worry about money it seems, so why not get advice from the hotel re a tour guide, and the helicopter ride rather than someone from the airport taxi rank. Dewani is also a relatively sophisticated man who hired a private plane to whisk Anni off to Paris, where he proposed to her. He'd also taken trips to Thailand and India (Germany too) so must have been aware of the need to be cautious about safety. So not a naive man abroad.

 

[patCee]

Hi, as I have mentioned before, I am just as interested in this trial as the Pistorius one (if not more so). I am on holiday now, so I haven't been able to follow the first day of the trial or read of of the comments on this thread yet. However, I want to check if someone agrees with me that his infertility claim seems a bit suspect (more like an excuse that anything else);

How did he know that he was infertile and needed testosterone therapy? Normally, you would try for a baby for at least 6 months before realising that something is wrong. Had he been trying to get pregnant with someone else before? I don't think so.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Maybe hoping it would worry Anni and she would back off the marriage, and it looks as though she did for a time. Then it was all on again when he got some positive medical advice, and perhaps parental pressure. Also some enlightened couples do check these things out prior to marriage along with HIV tests etc.

 

[ColonelMustard]

Hi, as I have mentioned before, I am just as interested in this trial as the Pistorius one (if not more so). I am on holiday now, so I haven't been able to follow the first day of the trial or read of of the comments on this thread yet. However, I want to check if someone agrees with me that his infertility claim seems a bit suspect (more like an excuse that anything else);

How did he know that he was infertile and needed testosterone therapy? Normally, you would try for a baby for at least 6 months before realising that something is wrong. Had he been trying to get pregnant with someone else before? I don't think so.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

It sounds totally sketchy to me.

However, if I was a high-powered defense lawyer wouldn't I make certain that everything my client claimed (ahem, everything I'd "suggest" to my client that he claim) had some basis in fact, somewhere for someone? I think they'll get one or more expert witnesses that will testify in support of everything he's contending about hormones, hormone levels and Thai boxing, etc.

Whether that actually applies to SW or not, my guess is a solid no.

 

[soozieqtips]

I don't understand why the driver said they would leave Anni at the police station. What was the point of that? It wasn't to rape her, because she wasn't sexually assaulted, so what reason was there for not releasing her at the same time? I'm just thinking out loud. I guess the pieces will start to slot in later, unlike OP's trial, where the pieces all fell out!

 

[PrimeSuspect]

If Dewani is innocent, he's going to have so much trouble explaining these messages Anni sent to her family and friends. He should have let her be, he sounds too controlling and desperate in trying to make her stay. Considering he's gay, and imo, not bisexual, just such a selfish man. Doesn't make him a murderer, just not a nice guy.


Bride-to-be Anni Dewani sent desperate text messages to her family before her wedding, saying: ‘I’m going to be unhappy for the rest of my life’.
Mrs Dewani sent a series of increasingly distressed messages to her cousin Sneha, expressing deep reservations about her fiancé Shrien.
In August 2010, two months after she got engaged, she spoke of her loneliness while visiting his family, writing: ‘Miss you so much. Don’t want to be with these people. I hate them. Want to cry myself to death.’

By September, while she was in India for wedding preparations, she appeared no happier and wrote on September 16: ‘Fighting a lot with Shrien. Told him I’m going home.

‘Wish I never got engaged. Everyone tells me how fortunate I am – even my designer tells me he’s good-looking and that I’m lucky. Absolutely sick.’
On September 21, five weeks before the extravagant Mumbai ceremony, she wrote: ‘I don’t want to marry him . . . we have nothing in common. He’s putting pressure on everything. He’s a perfectionist.’
In another text, she said: ‘Want to cry myself to death’.

The Swedish-born bride was concerned that her husband refused to be intimate with her, and texted: ‘One cannot even hug him.’ On September 22, she texted Sneha and said: ‘Told his and my parents I don’t want to get married.’

But her cousin said Mr Dewani persuaded her he would change and the wedding went ahead.
A week later, the situation appeared to have deteriorated and she wrote: ‘Hate him. I am not happy.’
Messages sent to her cousin from her honeymoon in South Africa show she was still distressed. On November 10, she said: ‘What shall I do? It’s been one day and I feel exactly the same as I did before.’

But the next day, two days before her death, she seemed to have had a change of heart, texting: ‘Hello! It’s much better now. How are you? Is going better than before. Hard to explain but I’ll call you soon as I return. Hate the word divorce.’
On November 13, she was shot dead in a taxi on the outskirts of Cape Town.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...otage-raises-concerns-case.html#ixzz3FOyiKmXO

 

[WilliamMunter]

What can this mean?

"In an attempt to shorten the proceedings I have made a number of admissions in terms of section 220 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1977..."

Dewani statement para 106

220 Admissions
An accused or his or her legal adviser or the prosecutor may in criminal proceedings admit any fact placed in issue at such proceedings and any such admission shall be sufficient proof of such fact.

http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1977-051.pdf

I think it means that certain pieces of evidence will be accepted as common cause and not disputed nor chain of evidence queried.

 

[ColonelMustard]

.
"Later there were gasps in the ornate, wood-lined courtroom when a police video showed his wife’s bloodstained body lying in the back of an abandoned car, still wearing her black evening dress and high heels, her hair blowing softly in the breeze."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/06/shrien-dewani-first-day-murder-trial-wife-anni


... her hair blowing softly in the breeze.

I can't adequately articulate the feelings that came over me when I read this.


If I was directing a film, I'd say, "When you get to the part where the actor has just finished reading this line, zoom out from a mental image of their mouth opening and out of it coming a soul-wrenching scream that resonates out into the universe.

 

[Lux et Veritas]

So ... no televised Dewani trial.
Stupid, gutless decision.

A high-profile murder trial is absolutely in the public interest (as we're seeing with the OP trial, any precedence the Dewani trial sets will most definitely affect SA criminal courts. That's why the OP verdict is so dangerous.)

"Open courts", "open justice" are worthless without open access to the public.

But, whatever, blame the “media”.
For what - doing their freakin jobs?!

Live TV broadcast of the OP trial was never a “problem”, it never remotely hindered the judicial process. Masipa, even though otherwise a rather useless judge, did keep a tight rein on courtroom journalists’ filming and twittering, as she deemed allowable (WTF has Roux got to complain about?!).

No doubt, defense will still argue “unfair trial” at any appeal. Why didn’t Roux super-aggressively fight live coverage before the trial? Because the public adored national hero OP; he was banking on public sympathy via live broadcast of his client’s heartrending, remorseful theatrics - hey, what good are a green bucket and emotional breakdowns if no one can see them?

Journalists, live video feeds and public opinion did NOT affect Masipa’s verdict one iota. I guarantee you her ruling would have been exactly the same without news cameras in the courtroom.

Lying, perjured defense witnesses (at least three of whom tampered with key evidence: phone, handbag, watch) + a biased, corrupt and/or incompetent judge were the sole problems, NOT live media.

Let’s see if muzzled (oh so evil) TV cameras lead to perfect justice for Anni Hindocha.

 

[ColonelMustard]

If Dewani is innocent, he's going to have so much trouble explaining these messages Anni sent to her family and friends. He should have let her be, he sounds too controlling and desperate in trying to make her stay. Considering he's gay, and imo, not bisexual, just such a selfish man. Doesn't make him a murderer, just not a nice guy.


Bride-to-be Anni Dewani sent desperate text messages to her family before her wedding, saying: ‘I’m going to be unhappy for the rest of my life’.
Mrs Dewani sent a series of increasingly distressed messages to her cousin Sneha, expressing deep reservations about her fiancé Shrien.
In August 2010, two months after she got engaged, she spoke of her loneliness while visiting his family, writing: ‘Miss you so much. Don’t want to be with these people. I hate them. Want to cry myself to death.’

By September, while she was in India for wedding preparations, she appeared no happier and wrote on September 16: ‘Fighting a lot with Shrien. Told him I’m going home.

‘Wish I never got engaged. Everyone tells me how fortunate I am – even my designer tells me he’s good-looking and that I’m lucky. Absolutely sick.’
On September 21, five weeks before the extravagant Mumbai ceremony, she wrote: ‘I don’t want to marry him . . . we have nothing in common. He’s putting pressure on everything. He’s a perfectionist.’
In another text, she said: ‘Want to cry myself to death’.

The Swedish-born bride was concerned that her husband refused to be intimate with her, and texted: ‘One cannot even hug him.’ On September 22, she texted Sneha and said: ‘Told his and my parents I don’t want to get married.’

But her cousin said Mr Dewani persuaded her he would change and the wedding went ahead.
A week later, the situation appeared to have deteriorated and she wrote: ‘Hate him. I am not happy.’
Messages sent to her cousin from her honeymoon in South Africa show she was still distressed. On November 10, she said: ‘What shall I do? It’s been one day and I feel exactly the same as I did before.’

But the next day, two days before her death, she seemed to have had a change of heart, texting: ‘Hello! It’s much better now. How are you? Is going better than before. Hard to explain but I’ll call you soon as I return. Hate the word divorce.’
On November 13, she was shot dead in a taxi on the outskirts of Cape Town.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...otage-raises-concerns-case.html#ixzz3FOyiKmXO

Dear PrimeSuspect,

Every relationship has its ups and downs.

Sincerely,

Judge Masipa