LONDON, March 30 (Reuters) – The extradition to South Africa
of a British man accused of conspiring to kill his wife in a
fake car-jacking during the couple’s honeymoon in Cape Town was
temporarily halted by London’s High Court on Friday over
concerns for his mental health.
Millionaire Shrien Dewani, 31, has fought extradition
proceedings, arguing that he is suffering from severe
post-traumatic stress disorder and is too unwell to be sent
abroad for trial.
Last August, however, a judge approved the extradition, a
decision subsequently upheld by Home Secretary Theresa May.
But on Friday, High Court judge Sir John Thomas said it
would be unjust and oppressive to send Dewani back to South
Africa in his present condition.
He added though: “It is plainly in the interests of justice
that the appellant be tried in South Africa as soon as he is fit
to be tried.”
Anni Dewani, 28 and from Sweden, was shot when the taxi the
couple were travelling in was hijacked in the Gugulethu township
on the outskirts of Cape Town last November.
She was found dead in the back of the abandoned cab with a
bullet wound to her neck after cabbie Zola Tongo drove the
newlyweds to the township.
Shrien Dewani claims the vehicle was carjacked and that he
and Tongo were forced out of the car unharmed before Mrs Dewani
was driven away and killed.
However, Tongo turned state witness and, in return for a
reduced sentence, alleged that Dewani paid for his wife to be
killed.
(Reporting by Stephen Addison; editing by Michael Holden)
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