Man quizzed over honeymoon killing

Anni Dewani was murdered after she and her husband were carjacked while on honeymoon in Cape Town
12 April 2012

A man is being questioned by detectives investigating the murder of a newlywed on her honeymoon in South Africa, police said.

The 26-year-old from Khayelitsha was arrested on Tuesday morning, according to a spokesman for Western Cape Police.

Anni Dewani's husband Shrien described how he pleaded with armed carjackers not to separate him from his wife of two weeks when their taxi was targeted in a township on the outskirts of Cape Town late on Saturday night.

The gunmen drove off with the couple inside the people carrier and forced Mr Dewani, 31, out of the window of the vehicle after driving around dark streets for 20 minutes. With a gun held to his head, he was told that his partner would not be harmed. The body of his 28-year-old Swedish wife was found the next morning.

"The first we knew that the cab was being attacked was when we heard the banging," Mr Dewani told the Daily Mail. "I don't want to go into detail about what happened during the attack, because I will probably start crying. But they were so cold. They put a gun in my ear and pulled back the trigger - it really was the stuff of movies.

"The men kept on saying 'We are not going to hurt you. We just want the car'. That was a lie. Most of the conversation in the car was us pleading for us to be dumped together. I held on to Anni as I said to them 'Look, if you're not going to hurt her, why don't you let us go?'"

The couple, who married in India, spent the first four days of their honeymoon on safari in Kruger National Park before heading to a five-star hotel in Cape Town.

Mr Dewani, from Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, said they decided to venture outside of the normal tourist areas to see the "real Africa".

He said: "Anni grew up in Sweden, and she felt as if the area around this hotel was just like at home: so clean and safe, and maybe a bit sterile. She had never been to Africa before, so she suggested that we should have a look at the 'real Africa'."

Anni's father, Vinod Hindocha, told the Swedish newspaper Expressen: "It's just terrible. She was the most beautiful girl in the world."

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