One of the killers convicted of the murder of Anni Dewani to be released on compassionate grounds.Mirror
By Josh Layton
6 July 2014
The father of murdered honeymoon bride Anni Dewani is furious after it emerged her cancer-stricken killer is to be released on compassionate grounds.
Gunman Xolile Mngeni is set to be granted ‘mercy’ by the South African authorities after a team of doctors gave him just months to live.
Shrien and Anni Dewani on their wedding day. Convicted killer Xolile Mngeni set for release on compassionate grounds.
Anni’s husband Shrien, a millionaire businessman from Bristol, will go on trial in October after being extradited to face claims that he organised the slaying.
Anni’s father Vinod Hindocha held back tears as he said: “The South Africans should not be thinking about Mngeni right now.
“They should be concentrating on bringing Shrien to trial.”
Mngeni, 25, killed Swedish-born Anni with a single shot as she sat in a taxi in the outskirts of Cape Town in November 2010.
He is critically ill in hospital with a malignant brain tumour which was diagnosed soon after his arrest for the slaying in 2011.
A secret report prepared by South Africa’s correctional supervision and parole board now recommends that he be released.
Official sources have also said the killer has been assessed by a team of 11 doctors who have concluded that he has only months to live.
Suspect Shrien Dewani with wife Anni before her murder.
Mr Hindocha, 64, said: “It took two years to get this individual before the court and during that time he received the best care doctors could give him.
“He received a fair trial and was found guilty and given a life sentence. Why should he be freed?
“He showed no such mercy to Anni, a defenceless young woman.
“I do not want revenge against him. I just want justice.”
The move is similar to the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrah from a Scottish prison in 2009. He died of cancer three years later.
One South African official said: “Basically, the doctors say he is going to die soon and it should be as a free man.
“They don’t see the point of him dying in a cell.”
Anni's parents, Vinod and Neelum Hindocha, "Why should he be released...he showed no mercy to Anni"
The release will probably take place within a few weeks with South Africa’s Justice Department having been asked to gain ministerial approval for the move.
Mngeni was branded “evil” by the judge after being given a life sentence for premeditated murder in December 2012.
His trial had been adjourned several times after he fell ill from a the brain tumour.
Prosecutors claimed Mngeni was a hitman hired by Dewani to kill his 28-year-old wife, something that the British businessman has consistently denied.
Taxi driver Zola Tongo was jailed for 18 years after he admitted his part in the killing.
Another accomplice, Mziwamadoda Qwabe, also pleaded guilty to murder and was handed a 25-year prison sentence.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/anni-dewanis-killer-freed-compassionate-3821492
