/ 2 January 2011

Anni Dewani ‘sounded worried’

Anni Dewani 'sounded Worried'

Bride Anni Dewani — who was killed during her honeymoon — wanted to tell her parents something urgently hours before she was murdered, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.

“She said ‘Dad, I have so much to tell you, I’ll be home on Tuesday and I’ll have so much to tell you,” her father Vinod Hindocha told the weekly newspaper.

Hindocha said that Anni Dewani’s tone had not been that of a happy bride who wanted to talk about her honeymoon.

‘I know her tone of voice’
“She sounded worried,” he said adding: “She said the same words to my wife [Nilam] as well.

“She was not herself when she said those words. I’ve known her for 28 years, so I know her tone of voice,” Hindocha said, referring to a conversation he had had with his daughter four hours before she was murdered.

Anni Dewani, whose family lives in Sweden, was shot and killed during a reported carjacking on the outskirts of Cape Town.

Zola Tongo, the driver of the taxi in which the couple were travelling, said he was paid R1 500 for his role in the murder.

He was sentenced to 18 years in jail after he turned state’s witness and implicated the victim’s husband in plotting to kill her.

Shrien Dewani’s family claim Tongo’s evidence is unreliable because he was offered a reduced sentence in return for cooperating with the investigation.

Hindocha said Shrien had concealed the destination for the honeymoon from his new bride.

However she only learned that they were going to South Africa when her mother-in-law let it slip two days before their departure.

“Why would one keep a honeymoon a secret? I don’t know. One should be proud, and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to South Africa,” said Hindocha.

Anni Dewani’s friends asked why her husband had emerged from the incident without a scratch on his body.

“Why don’t you voluntarily go to court and show South African police suspicions are wrong?” they wrote an open letter to Shrien Dewani on Saturday. – Sapa