Wife's holiday murder: Brit-Indian recounts SA events

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London: Brit-Indian Shrien Dewani, whose wife was killed on their honeymoon in South Africa, has said for the first time how he felt powerless after the taxi they were travelling in was ambushed by armed men in Cape Town, and pleaded with their kidnappers not to separate him from his wife, but they lied saying they 'won’t hurt' her.

The couple had reportedly arrived in the country last week and spent four days on safari in the Kruger National Park. On Friday they moved to Cape Town and after spending Saturday lounging by their hotel pool, they decided to head out.

At Cape Town’s five-star Cape Grace Hotel where the couple had been staying, Mr Dewani said: “We spent an a hour-and-a-half driving around the city. At around 9pm, we headed to Somerset West (a suburb 30 miles away),” when they were attacked.

“They were banging their guns on the windows. One of them was using his gun to smash the driver’s window. Until this happened we had been completely oblivious. We were sitting in the back of the cab going through all the pictures of our safari,” the Daily Mail quoted Dewani, as saying.

Dewani, from Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, who owns a series of care homes, told how the attackers forced the taxi driver out of the cab and took off at speed with the couple in the back. He also said that they had put a gun in his ear and pulled back the trigger.

He said that he and his wife Anne, who had married in India, were together for 20 minutes as it hurtled around the township’s dark streets and the two men took their valuables, the paper said.

He further stated that ‘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?”

Soon the gunmen threw him out of the hijacked taxi’s window. On Sunday, Anni’s body was found dumped in the back of the taxi in another township, miles from where they were picked up, he claimed.

Investigations into the case are continuing.