Honeymoon murder: Indian-origin couple not officially married

LONDON - In a new twist in the killing of an Indian-origin woman in South Africa during her honeymoon tour, the victim’s father has revealed that the couple’s wedding was yet to be registered.

Anni, 28, was found dead after she was abducted by two gunmen while travelling in a taxi along with her partner Shrien Dewani in Western Cape. The British couple flew into South Africa for their honeymoon.

But the lavish 200,000-pound “marriage” they went through in Mumbai in November in the presence of 300 guests was never officially registered there or anywhere else, the Daily Mail reported Saturday.

The newspaper said it has confirmed with the British high commission in India that the union was never registered, and therefore would not have been recognised in either Britain or Sweden.

From his home in Sweden, Anni’s father said: “My wife and I are Annis closest relatives - not Shrien. She was not formally married to Shrien.”

“According to the authorities (in Britain and Sweden), Anni was still Miss Hindocha when she died. The marriage registration was not going to happen until March next year, when Anni had her birthday in Britain and they switched rings, which is our custom.”

A letter, sent this week to the Mail from people claiming to be Anni’s friends, asked troubling questions about Anni’s late-night abduction in a dangerous black township of Gugulethu, several miles from their Cape Town hotel.

Shrien said that nine hours earlier he was thrown out of the “back window” of the same taxi at gunpoint and left, bewildered and alone, to sound the alarm.

One friend of Shrien whom the couple invited to India says: “It was a lavish event at an expensive hotel which has lawns running down to a lake. Guests flew in from London with Shrien and Anni. Everyone believed they were a couple made for each other.”

On the flight back home to London, it appears the couple were not on speaking terms. A woman claiming to be an air hostess on the flight has said that Anni looked unhappy and was in tears.

“One of my colleagues brought her some tissues,” she recalls. “The couple did not speak one word to each other during the nine-hour flight. We all noticed and found this strange.”

The disturbing account was posted on a website and written under the hostess’s first name.

People are asking two questions — could a grown man fit through the rear passengerwindow, as Shrien says he did? And having been through such an ordeal, how come his clothes were not torn, or his shoes dirtied?

A letter received by the Mail, and signed by “the devoted friends and acquaintances of our beloved Anni”, says she knew Nigeria and Kenya well, contradicting Shrien’s suggestion that she had never been to Africa before.

“It is beyond comprehension that Anni suggested seeing “the real Africa” in such a dangerous area at such a late hour,” says the letter. “She was an intelligent and smart girl.”

The letter, sent by post, was unsigned, but written in perfect English and typed out.

It adds: “We believe the South African investigation may be a whitewash, and Annis demise is highly mysterious.”

Shrien, an accountant, has not been called back to South Africa by police to attend an identity parade of three local men who have now been charged with kidnap, robbery and murder.

South Africa’s Mail and Guardian newspaper recently reported that Shrien Dewani “will be arrested and charged” in connection with Anni’s murder if he returns to the country.