Shrien Dewani still a suicide risk, court told

Honeymoon murder suspect needs 'period of calm' to recover from mental health issues before extradition to South Africa
Shrien Dewani
Shrien Dewani is accused of having his wife murdered during their honeymoon in Cape Town, South Africa. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

Extradition proceedings are hanging like "the sword of Damocles" over Shrien Dewani, wanted in South Africa for the honeymoon murder of his wife, a court has heard.

The British businessman needed a 12-month "period of calm" to recover from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) before being able to deal with the extradition process, said his barrister, Clare Montgomery QC. He did not attend the hearing.

Dewani, 32, is accused of arranging the contract killing of his Swedish-born bride Anni, 28, in Cape Town in November 2010. His extradition was postponed by the high court in March because of his poor mental health. He is undergoing medical treatment after being sectioned and judged a suicide risk.

His case, which returned to Westminster magistrates court on Tuesday after several hearings, has been adjourned until 18 September for a psychiatrist, employed by the South African government, to examine him. Dewani, a care-home owner from Bristol, has pledged to clear his name.

Montgomery told the chief magistrate, Howard Riddle, that keeping her client under medical treatment in Britain for 12 months would increase the speed of his recovery, while sending him to South Africa would jeopardise it.

According to his psychiatrist, he was making a slow recovery but one damaging factor was his "constant awareness of the court proceedings", she said.

The mental health tribunal reviewing the report of Dewani's section order, which keeps him undergoing hospital treatment until May 2013, confirmed his condition.

Dewani was taking antidepressants on the advice of his psychiatrist who believed his depression and PTSD were of moderate severity and had discernibly decreased, said Montgomery. However he still posed a real risk of suicide, the court heard, and was unable "to give an account of himself", possibly because he cannot remember. "This is associated with the post-traumatic stress disorder," she said.

He could be fit to begin dealing with the extradition process in a year, according to his NHS-appointed psychiatrist, who wrote in a report submitted to the court: "He is gradually recovering." Dewani's wife was shot when a taxi the couple were travelling in was hijacked in the Gugulethu township on the outskirts of Cape Town.

She was found dead in the back of the abandoned vehicle with a bullet wound to her neck after the taxi driver Zola Tongo drove the newlyweds to the impoverished area. He and Dewani were ejected by the hijackers before Mrs Dewani was driven away and killed.


The court heard that a psychiatrist previously instructed by the South Africans to examine Dewani no longer wanted to be instructed but no explanation was given. Dewani's extradition was temporarily halted in March when Sir John Thomas, the president of the Queen's Bench Division, and Mr Justice Ouseley ruled it was "unjust and oppressive" to send him to South Africa straight away.

They rejected claims that he should not be extradited on human rights grounds and said it was in the interests of justice that he be extradited "as soon as he is fit".

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