Website that analyses the Anni Dewani murder in detail

[Passer-by]

Baseless Allegations - unsupported by any credible evidence

Well this is an ironic title!

Absolutely nowhere is there any evidence to suggest anyone has made these allegations:  I'm sure some have been said in stupid places like Twitter, but you have to show a claim was made before refuting it.  Some of these look made-up just so you can refute them.

4 - actually there was a group of Academic and lawyers in South Africa which made a complaint against the trial judge and although she was later cleared it was by no means a certainty she would be as initially the panel making the decision reached a stalemate.

5 ditto

6:  speculation:  the trial was halted and not all evidence heard.  As you repeatedly state and is very clear the prosecution was a shambles and incompetent:  circumstantial evidence is allowed in court and does exist to suggest Dewani could be implicated:  that is a fact.  Best if all, the important circumstantial evidence comes from Dewani changing several key aspects of his story before the trial.

7 - subjective:  he is rich, and he did hire South Africa's top defence lawyer, those are both facts.  One might argue that he was indeed exonerated because his lawyer advised him not to take the stand as he might incriminate himself.

8:  ZAR1,000,000 is £50,000 - don't get carried away with the excitement of the word 'millions'.  UK Taxpayers footed the £250,000 legal bill to fight his extradition. Admittedly he made South African Taxpayers fly him to RSA on a chartered aeroplane with a team of doctors and nurses which cost ZAR2.9million, but fortunately after the trial when he had to head back at his own expense he managed to fly on a sceduled BA flight.

9 - speculation/subjective opinion

11 - contradicts earlier statement that he is bisexual

13:  speculation - and his family threatened to sue The Sun for defamation when it printed the prostitutes claims that he was gay.

14:  worth noting the man was known to him, he died in similar circumstances and for that reason his family flew to be with Dewani.  That's 2 more carjackings connections than most people.

23:  mentioning 'a' helicopter trip is not the same as saying he gave cash to the taxi driver for it, you are trying to conflate the 2 to make it look like he didn't change his story when he suddenly remembered the cash for the helicopter later.

25:  untrue - Dewani's version of events have not been consistent for 4 years and the implication of the changes he made to credible witnesses are significant and form circumstantial evidence against him.  The rest if this long point is speculation.

26.  Untrue:  it is not a baseless claim, millions of tourists do not visit a township at all and numerous locals were reported in the press saying no tourist would go there at night.  In addition, the place they were allegedly going to shuts at night.  The link to Cape Town tourism does not pass comment on safety at night, but it is known the area has over the last 5 years had an average of one murder every 2.5 days.

27.  They actually made a reservation?! Thanks for that tip:  as I said earlier, she was clearly dressed for Strand not a township. The rest of this point is actually fact:  few tourists to Caoe Town visit it - Strand is a holiday resort for white South Africans, particularly favoured by Afrikaners - it has nothing Cape Town doesn't.

28:  speculation/subjective

29:  subjective

30:  subjective

God this is exhausting and tedious.  I can't even be bothered to count up how many of those 'facts' were actually just your opinion.

[Passer-by]

Still Unknown

33 they did drive her to a deserted bushy location - if you look on the map I helpfully gave you she was found next to a patch of wasteland, as the photos in the press clearly showed.  I also posted you reports by reputable journalists in which local people said it was too dangerous to go out at night even if you hear something going on you don't open your door.

36. You have no evidence ZAR10,000 was stolen from Dewani - it deserves a slot here all of its own.

39:  speculation.

Omissions:

It is not known how Dewani made initial contact with an illegal taxi Driver rather than a legal one.
It is not known what Dewani did whilst he was with Tongo for 45 minutes on the day of the murder other than an illegal cash trade at a jewellers shop instead of a legal cash trade at the bank adjoining.
It is not known what money was left in the car.
It is not known what money/jewelry changed hands at any other stage.
It is not known whether Dewani ever had physical relations with a woman, only that he did with a man and that he watched gay porn and was a member of gay chat rooms.
It is not known why Dewani changed his story with regard to whose idea it was to visit the township - or even Strand
It is not known what was in the carrier bag gave to Tongo.
It is not known why Dewani thought he might incriminate himself if he took the witness stand.
It is not known why Dewani does not fight for the killers of his wife to have long jail terms.

[Passer-by]

My final piece.

As I said many, many pages back on this thread, there is nothing connecting Dewani to this crime, he is squeaky clean.  He has been acquitted by a court of law because the prosecution case wasn't good enough, even if they had been allowed to submit all their evidence (though it's possible Dewani could have been caught out in cross examination).  Because South Africa has double jeopardy written into its constitution, even if utterly concrete evidence came to light proving he was connected to the murder, he could not be retried in South Africa.

What you want to do Dewanifacts is also win a 'victory' in the Court of The People:  that is an entirely different game.  We have seen the evidence that wasn't allowed in court or which the prosecution bungled.  We know he changed his story, we know he did many things, like the money change, in a shady manner.  We know how few tourists go to that township, we know millions of tourists do the attractions right outside his hotel.  We know the evidence of the prostitute, the record of his disrepsectful behaviour towards Anni's family.

And we, the people, judge him.  And you can't ever change that no matter how much you dress up your own speculation as 'facts':  that is the price he has to pay for not getting even a scratch or graze defending his wife and for not being man enough to take the witness stand to allay all these concerns and look her murderers in the eye and give evidence against them.  That is the price he has to pay for handing over a carrier bag to one of them instead.

[dewanifacts]

Thank you for your feedback, Passer-by. We will take a look and consider the merits of your comments and any substantiation that you have provided.

I have posed several questions to you throughout this thread, most of which you have steadfastly ignored and declined to answer.

You can start with reply #99 on page 7. John admitted that there was no arguing with those points. I asked whether you have any way of refuting them.  Do you?

Ball is in your court. Once you have replied to that and other questions addressed to you, then we will post a response to the suggestions you have made regarding our site's content. 

Thanks again.

[mercury]

We're not in the slightest concerned about being hoisted by any petard as we aren't a PR outfit. Of the long diatribe posted above, not one ounce constitutes evidence. If it was, then it would have been introduced by the prosecutors as part of their case with a witness or witnesses providing the court with testimony as to what tourists do, where they change money, how easy it is to find helicopters and other such information.

Passer-by.  Anni told her cousin Sneha that the sex with Dewani was ok but not as good as with her ex. They consumated the marriage on a number of occasions, just not on the wedding night (allegedly).

Only Dewani can know if he likes women as well as men. See Baseless (11).

As for the part about a bi man being able to happily live with a family whilst a gay man couldn't? If you believe this to be an accurate statement then far be it from me to try to teach you otherwise. Good luck with life!

I understand by now that you are not the slightest bit concerned about any comments made, it is a bit like sticking your fingers in your ears and singing la la la la la

I find the poster Passer Bys comments extremely relevant truthful and enlightening so on that account you have an extremely massive fail. Dewani looks even more...thanks to you. Bye now.

[dewanifacts]

Why would that be a fail? Those who believe Dewani to be guilty will always feel that way. We are not going to change anyone's opinion if they feel as strongly as Passer-by appears to. We asked this forum for feedback knowing full well that we would be met with a tide of indignation. Nothing unexpected.

Some of the clearer thinkers on the forum appeared to see some reason.

We want the full set of facts to be available in an easily digestible format and for people to make up their own minds.

That is the first step toward achieving true justice for Anni and pushing for the criminals who perpetrated this crime to be imprisoned for 25 years plus.

Thanks for your feedback, mercury. It is appreciated.

[dewanifacts]

Passer-by, regarding your critique. Thank you for the time taken to write all that. There are a couple of valid points made and we will make a couple of amendments based on your suggestions. Whilst you undoubtedly have excellent knowledge of Cape Town and would make an above average tour guide, you clearly are not well versed in the facts of the case, a standing which places you at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to critiquing content that is primarily focused on separating fact from fiction.

It is apparent that you possess scant regard for the expertise of the learned judge and for the evidence that her court heard and adjudicated upon but even with this in mind, the sheer number of factual errors in your comments are disquieting. I do not have the time to explain the deficiencies of every one of your points but can make a few general comments that apply to many of them. Your critique is largely unsubstantiated and mostly factually incorrect. You have questioned the validity of many facts that neither prosecutors nor defence team disputed. Many of your comments are logically flawed. Many of your comments demonstrate a basic lack of understanding as to why certain factors take on importance in the context of the case. You have even made basic comprehension errors. A case in point?

Credible (2) states the claim that "Dewani is bisexual".
Baseless (11) states the claim that "Dewani is gay".

Your comment on Baseless (11): "contradicts earlier statement that he is bisexual".

How can we respond to logic like this? We do not have the inclination to spoon feed and teach people how to read and comprehend simple information written in plain English.

For many of our "baseless" items you have tried to counter by claiming that we are speculating. The irony is overwhelming considering your arguments are in most instances based on your own speculation. By definition, unless factual evidence can support those claims then they must remain catagorised as "baseless".

You have made the curious demand that we provide "evidence" of where all the baseless claims have been made in the past. Would you like us to cite every tweet, fb post, media article and forum mention for each of the baseless claims? Sorry but that will not be happening. We sought to present the common claims that had been often repeated over four and a half years. This thread (and other threads in this forum) turned out to be a superb endorsement of our list. Many of our baseless claims are stated in this thread as though they are factual, often by yourself. 

A good example is your continuing insistence that there was circumstantial evidence of Dewani's involvement and your disingenuous claim that the trial was halted before such evidence could be presented. The trial was halted after the prosecutors closed their case. They had no further witnesses and no further evidence to present.   

Thanks for your effort. As mentioned above, we might make some amendments to the site based on your feedback.

[dewanifacts]

Hi mercury

You may be surprised to hear that two of the three dewanifacts partners were of the strong belief that Dewani was guilty for the best part of four years. I am one of those. Having open free thinking minds was exactly what led us to conclude that we had been misled and mistaken with our original evaluation and upon seeing the evidence it became clear that only one side of the narrative had been pushed by the media. That side was not driven by facts, but by speculation, assumption and Dewani's odd personality traits and behaviour.

We unapologetically have an agenda; the truth. A natural byproduct of that agenda will be true justice for Anni, for when the truth is exposed and widely known then the pressure will build on the SA authorities to prosecute Mbolombo and impose the appropriate 25+ sentences on Qwabe and Tongo. The only leniency for them should result from them giving up the fifth conspirator's identity and testifying against that person at trial should it be required to convict.

So long as people erroneously believe in Dewani's guilt, the real perpetrators continue to evade justice through immunity and lenient sentences and the uneducated public sit idly by due to their ignorant unsubstantiated belief that Dewani is the one who escaped justice.

[Angelo222]

Hi mercury

You may be surprised to hear that two of the three dewanifacts partners were of the strong belief that Dewani was guilty for the best part of four years. I am one of those. Having open free thinking minds was exactly what led us to conclude that we had been misled and mistaken with our original evaluation and upon seeing the evidence it became clear that only one side of the narrative had been pushed by the media. That side was not driven by facts, but by speculation, assumption and Dewani's odd personality traits and behaviour.

We unapologetically have an agenda; the truth. A natural byproduct of that agenda will be true justice for Anni, for when the truth is exposed and widely known then the pressure will build on the SA authorities to prosecute Mbolombo and impose the appropriate 25+ sentences on Qwabe and Tongo. The only leniency for them should result from them giving up the fifth conspirator's identity and testifying against that person at trial should it be required to convict.

So long as people erroneously believe in Dewani's guilt, the real perpetrators continue to evade justice through immunity and lenient sentences and the uneducated public sit idly by due to their ignorant unsubstantiated belief that Dewani is the one who escaped justice.

Let's be honest, Dewani has never been able to prove innocence in a conspiracy to murder Anni and neither have you.  Furthermore, you admit that he still has questions to answer which speaks volumes.

Tongo claimed that Dewani told him that this wasn't the first time he had 'done it'.  My question to you is this, if Tongo had made the entire story up why on earth invent such a strange admission?

[sika]

Let's be honest, Dewani has never been able to prove innocence in a conspiracy to murder Anni and neither have you.  Furthermore, you admit that he still has questions to answer which speaks volumes.

Tongo claimed that Dewani told him that this wasn't the first time he had 'done it'.  My question to you is this, if Tongo had made the entire story up why on earth invent such a strange admission?

Excellent point.

[dewanifacts]

Why is that an excellent point?

Tongo was caught lying about numerous things in his attempt to make his story seem believable.   

This alleged "admission" was another of Tongo's embellishments.

If we were to add this point to our site (which we might) it would be classified as "baseless". I'm sure that Passer-by, Angelo222 and Mercury would cry foul...

[sika]

How odd that Mrs Raghavjee flew out to comfort the Dewanis, don't you think?

[Carbon Copy]

Let's be honest, Dewani has never been able to prove innocence in a conspiracy to murder Anni and neither have you.  Furthermore, you admit that he still has questions to answer which speaks volumes.

Tongo claimed that Dewani told him that this wasn't the first time he had 'done it'.  My question to you is this, if Tongo had made the entire story up why on earth invent such a strange admission?

Hi, first post here but have studied the case in great detail and commented extensively elsewhere.  Interested to see debate still raging 8 months after the trial!  I honestly thought the Traverso judgement would have put an end to these types of did he/didn't he type threads – her being so comprehensive in dismantling the states case.   I thought it was pretty clear that the courts finding was that these bunch of crims fingered Dewani in order to reduce their own liabilities? 

On this specific point though – Tongo's reference to Dewani having done something like this previously was the first indication to me that SAPS were complicit in framing him.  It's the timing that is important.  Dr Pox's bereaved wife turns up in SA to comfort Shrien (presumably knowing what he is going through) and police become suspicious...they make a link looking at the apparent similarities between the cases and start to investigate Shrien Dewani in respect of the previous hijack / murder.  Reference to this then appears in Tongo's statements around that time.  To my recollection SAPS subsequently admitted that after investigating Dewani he was in no way connected to the Dr Pox crime...but it was too late...they had already planted the information into Tongo's statement to embellish their case. 

That's how I see it anyway...the more I learnt about this case the more I realised that SAPS involvement crossed the line from incompetence and into the realms of corruption.  This was one example.  To my mind reference to Dr Pox murder had to have come from SAPS. 

So in answer to your question - why on earth would Tongo invent such a strange admission? He didn't.   SAPS likely spoon fed him the line shortly after advising him that he was shafted and looking at life in prison unless he agreed to testify against Dewani.

[sika]

Hi Carbon Copy.  I have absolutely no idea whether Dewani is guilty or not.  Other than having seen the BBC documentary, I know b....r all about this case.  I intend to read Dewanifacts website when I get a spare moment.

I find it quite extraordinary that the doctors wife flew out, all the way to South Africa, to offer comfort to someone she didn't even know. 

[dewanifacts]

The Raghavjees were family friends of the Dewanis. Given the fact that Dr Raghavjee 's wife had been through a similar tragedy, is it really that unbelievable that she would travel to support friends who found themselves in a situation with which she could empathise and sympathise?

It is obviously quite a coincidence that two families who know each other, both had to deal with shooting tragedies. There were no other similarities between the crimes. From what I remember, Raghavjee's murder remains unsolved but bore all the hallmarks of a genuine execution. A single shot to the head.
 
Carbon Copy your comments on Tongo's "admission" are interesting. I'm not so sure about your timings and suggestion that the admission didn't originate from Tongo himself. Will need to do a bit of research. It would add a further layer of intrigue if what you say does in fact add up. 

You appear to be well versed in the case. Would be interested to hear your comments and any suggestions regarding our site's content. We want it to be as accurate as possible.