Anni Dewani was 28, Swedish, of Indian origin, and ten days into the rest of her life. She and her new husband, British businessman Shrien Dewani, were honeymooning in Cape Town, South Africa. On the night of November 13, 2010, their taxi was ambushed in the Gugulethu township. Anni was shot in the neck. She died in the back of that taxi while her honeymoon was still in its first week.
What followed was one of the most convoluted murder investigations of the decade. South African police quickly decided the “hijacking” was staged. Three local men were convicted in connection with the killing through plea bargains — and all three implicated the same person as the plotter: the grieving husband, Shrien Dewani. The allegation was that he’d arranged his own wife’s murder during their honeymoon.
Shrien was extradited from the UK to South Africa to stand trial. And then, in December 2014, the case collapsed. The judge acquitted him, finding the prosecution’s star witness — the taxi driver turned state’s witness — “riddled with contradictions.” Shrien Dewani walked free: an innocent man in the eyes of the law.
This is what makes the Dewani case the strangest entry in the honeymoon-murders file. Three men are convicted of a murder-for-hire — but the man they named as the hirer was acquitted. Legally, it is a murder with no convicted mastermind. The people who pulled the trigger (or arranged the trigger-pullers) served time; the question of who ordered it, and why, has no judicial answer.
This article will not do what too many others have done and treat the acquittal as a technicality. An acquittal is an acquittal. Whatever you believe happened in Gugulethu that night, the court that heard all the evidence found Shrien Dewani not guilty, and that verdict is the fact.
What remains is a 28-year-old woman who was supposed to be starting her married life and instead became the center of an international legal labyrinth. Anni Dewani deserved a honeymoon. She got a crime scene, a four-year extradition saga, and a verdict that answered almost nothing. Some cases don’t end with justice. They just end.
Disclosure: The stories on Love Lies Abroad are based on publicly reported accounts. We are not stating these as facts — this is what was reported. If you are featured in a story and believe it is inaccurate, contact us and we will review it, correct it, or take it down.
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