London - A holidaymaker who befriended murder victim Anni Dewani in the final days of her life has claimed that her husband acted strangely on the couple’s honeymoon.
Chloe Spelling met Dewani and her husband Shrien while staying at the same luxury safari camp near the Kruger National Park.
On Sunday she claimed that, though she spent more than 24 hours with the honeymooners, she never saw them kiss.
She said that on the safari Mr Dewani was annoyed at his wife taking photos of lions and told her to stop and relax, saying: “There’s no point taking pictures of them.”
Spelling, 23, also said she was puzzled by Mr Dewani’s “odd’ response when she consoled him about his wife’s murder.
Mrs Dewani, 28, was shot dead when the taxi she and her husband were in was hijacked as it drove through a township outside Cape Town on November 13.
Although four South Africans have been arrested in connection with the murder - and one sentenced to 18 years in prison - detectives there insist the killing was “masterminded” by her husband.
Mr Dewani, 31, from Bristol, has been arrested and is on bail in Britain, awaiting an extradition hearing on Thursday. He adamantly denies any involvement.
Spelling, a South African, said that she met the Dewanis four days before the murder, at the Chitwa Chitwa Game Lodge in the north of the country.
She got on very well with Mrs Dewani, whom she first spoke to at a group dinner on the couple’s first night, November 9. Spelling said: “We only ever saw them touch once. At one point Anni put her hand on Shrien’s thigh during one of the game drives. But we never once saw Shrien touch her.
“There were other honeymooners there from Brazil and Portugal and they were always kissing and touching. With Anni and Shrien, it was like they had been married for years.
“They weren’t at all flirtatious. They never kissed. It seemed like Anni was more smitten with Shrien. If they had a bench of the Land Rover to themselves, Shrien would sit alone on one side and Anni would slide over to be beside him.
“She always seemed to be seeking his approval. If she said something like: ‘We had a long flight’, she would follow it up with, ‘Didn’t we, Shrien?’.”
Spelling, who spoke to the News of the World, also gave the newspaper photos of the Dewanis from their time at the game reserve.
One shows Spelling, her Australian travelling companion Sharon Aylward and the Dewanis all together.
Although Mr Dewani has his arm around his wife in one photo and her hand is on his knee, Spelling claims that this was the only time she ever saw the couple get this close.
“Anni really wanted a photo of us together,” she said. “Shrien put his arm around Anni and she put her hand on his thigh - but off-camera they were not tactile.”
Spelling did not speculate on who she thinks was responsible for Mrs Dewani’s death.
But she claimed that when she phoned Mr Dewani to offer her condolences, she was puzzled by his response. She said: “I told him, ‘I’m really sorry about Anni’, but all he said was, ‘It’s been a total disaster from start to finish’. I thought it was an odd thing to say and I couldn’t understand how calm he was. I thought, ‘This man doesnÕt sound upset’.”
Mr Dewani is said to be in “a fragile emotional state” and unable to comment personally on the accusations against him. But members of his close-knit community of friends in Bristol have spoken out in his defence.
Kamlesh Vyas, the panditji or priest at the Bristol Hindu Temple, who has known Mr Dewani for more than 10 years, said: “You couldn’t think about him killing even a fly.
“He is honest, down-to-earth, he comes to the temple whenever it is possible and is very humble in talking to everyone.”
Vyas claimed Mr Dewani is being used as a scapegoat to protect South Africa’s tourism industry. -Daily Mail