“Anni: The Honeymoon Murder” on Investigation Discovery recounts the murder of Anni Dewani in the middle of a hijacking in Cape Town, South Africa, in mid-November 2010. At first, her recently married spouse Shrien Dewani was seen as a victim; however, testimony and media coverage soon transformed him into a co-conspirator. Nonetheless, the episode attempts to present viewers with both sides of the narrative, letting them form their own opinions. Here is all we know about Shrien in case you’d like to know more about him, including his present location.
Who Is Shrien Dewani?
The wealthy Indian businessman’s daughter, Anni Ninna (née Hindocha) Dewani, was born in Sweden and started searching for her ideal husband in her mid-twenties. She visited London often and stayed with well-off relatives, her maternal uncles being the owners of the Waremoss drugstore company in Britain. She spent her weekends going shopping and hanging out with friends. She was set on marrying an Indian, and London’s multicultural society presented her with more opportunities than Stockholm’s.
At events in London, one of Anni’s aunts saw Shrien Dewani and was impressed by his well-groomed look, riches, and lineage. The aunt set up a casual meeting between Shrien and Anni at a coffee shop with the assistance of a mutual acquaintance. Their chemistry was immediately apparent, and in September 2009 they went on their first date—a trip to see a well-regarded production of “The Lion King” in London’s West End. After going on a second date at the Intercontinental Park Lane Hotel, Anni called her sister with great excitement, telling her that she had met “a guy” and that she was “going to meet again.”
The lives of Anni and Shrien were very similar to one another. His family, like Anni’s, was of Gujarati descent; during the rule of President Idi Amin, both sets of grandparents left Uganda and settled in England. His family had moved from Gujarat to Kenya so that Shrien’s father could pursue his pharmacology studies. Later, he opened a nursing home in Bristol that became a chain of senior care facilities, as well as a pharmacy. Shrien studied accounting at the University of Manchester after attending a prestigious prep school in Bristol.
Before eventually joining the family firm, PSP Healthcare, which expanded quickly under his direction, he worked as an English and maths teacher in Ghana. Shrien made millions of dollars before he was thirty. Like Anni, he was gregarious and well-liked. Some called him ostentatious, possibly putting his money a little too blatantly on display. But beyond the showy veneer, intimate friends saw warmth, generosity, and a decent sense of humour. It was his capacity to make Anni laugh and feel safe that particularly appealed to her.
After a few months of dating, Anni was completely smitten. In February 2010, she quit her work in Stockholm and moved into a flat in Luton, which is north of London. Before giving their assent, Anni’s parents had a meeting with the Dewanis in the spring of 2010. Shrien took Anni to an airfield close to Bristol shortly afterward, where a private jet was prepared to take them to Paris. At the restaurant inside the Hotel Ritz, he proposed with a delicately arranged $40,000 diamond engagement ring atop a red rose on a silver dish.
But after a magnificent October 19 wedding, the newlyweds’ November 2010 honeymoon was marred by Anni’s abduction on a November 13 taxi tour in Cape Town, South Africa. The following day, her body was found at Elitha Park, Khayelitsha, in the backseat of a Volkswagen Sharan minivan. She had been shot dead once at close range with a nine-millimeter pistol. Four individuals were swiftly taken into custody by the police: Monde Mbolombo, Xolile Mngeni, Zola Robert Tongo, and Mziwamadoda Lennox Qwabe.
Where Is Shrien Dewani Now?
The four guys first gave different versions of what happened in the vents, but later on they clarified that Shrien had paid them to murder his wedding bride. His conflicting versions of events, purported texts exchanged with Zola, and surveillance footage from the hotel lobby capturing him giving Zola a white plastic package (which the police claimed was part of the payment to carry out the murder) were just a few of the numerous circumstantial pieces of evidence that the police swiftly gathered against him.
Following the revelation of the charges during Zola’s hearing on December 7, 2010, Shrien turned himself in at Bristol’s Southmead police station at 10:38 p.m. on the same day. He was jailed for two days before being released on a £250,000 bond. He complied with a court order, turned in his passport, had an ankle-mounted electronic bracelet, and withdrew to his family’s Westbury-on-Trym house in Bristol. A few weeks later, a political aide in Parliament and a male escort from Munich came forward, claiming to have had multiple paid and unpaid sex sessions with Shrien.
The claims made against Shrien soon spread throughout Anni’s family, who cited a number of peculiar incidents, such as him throwing a pizza party the night before the funeral and arguing with the sisters of his late wife. Another sister remembered Anni’s attempt to call off the wedding, noting Shrien’s domineering demeanour. They conjectured that, following a prior broken engagement, Shrien was afraid a failed marriage would seriously harm his reputation in the traditional British-Indian culture, which is why he reportedly killed Anni.
On February 20, 2011, Shrien overdosed on sleeping pills in an attempt to end his life. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition. He was identified as having both post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. He was detained on April 7, 2014, following a protracted legal struggle, and charged with five crimes: conspiring to conduct kidnapping, robbery, murder, kidnapping, and obstructing justice. He was extradited to South Africa. Important witnesses refuted their prior testimony during his trial in October 2014, and it was found that some of the evidence was falsified.
In December 2014, the allegations against him were dropped. Nonetheless, a number of publications stated that the Hindocha family intended to sue their son-in-law for failing to reveal his sexual orientation before to being married to their daughter. Speaking on behalf of the family, Anni Hindocha’s uncle said, “We acknowledge he did not murder Anni, but he lied to us and had a very secret gay life.” He needs to apologise to us for lying to us. Currently in his 40s, Shrien shares a £3.5 million London flat with Brazilian photographer Gledison Lopez Martins.
