Less than a week before tourist Anni Dewani was murdered, she told a friend that crying had become her new hobby.
The Sun newspaper published an SMS exchange between 28-year-old Dewani and a 25-year-old friend from Mumbai on November 7 – six days before she was murdered in Cape Town.
Her husband Shrien Dewani, 31, has been accused of paying R15 000 to have her killed.
Millionaire care home boss Dewani publicly insists he and Anni were “blissfully happy” before she was shot.
Dewani, who escaped the carjacking unharmed with driver Xola Tongo, is awaiting an extradition hearing in Bristol on January 20.
Tongo claimed before he was jailed for 18 years for the murder, that Dewani – currently on £250 000 (R2.6m) bail at his home in Westbury-on-Trym – had paid to have his wife killed.
The friend asked Anni Dewani: “How r u? How r things?” and received a reply reading: “im ok, crying has become my new hobby.”
The friend said: “Hmm” before receiving another message reading: “Hope it will be better one day.”
The friend also told the newspaper that Dewani had thrown her engagement ring at her fiancée eight days before their Mumbai wedding, saying she was “glad it was all over” and that they were “just not compatible”.
“Anni moved out of the hotel for the night, but next day Shrien sent round a car and they made up,” the friend told the Sun.
The couple had a £200 000 (R2m) wedding ceremony in Mumbai in front of 300 guests, but Anni’s father, Vinod Hindocha, has said the marriage was not registered.
Anni’s father has also said she was unhappy on her honeymoon – and although the latest claims might not prove Shrien Dewani’s guilt, they do suggest complications in his version of events.
An air hostess later said the couple appeared not to be on speaking terms during their flight back from India.
Shrien Dewani was previously engaged to Rani Kansagra, the daughter of tycoon Bhupendra Kansagra, who owns the budget airline, SpiceJet.
Last week several of Anni Dewani’s friends wrote an open letter to her husband begging him to return to Cape Town to clear his name.
Extradition proceedings against Dewani have been launched but he claims, through his public relations specialist Max Clifford, that he wouldn’t receive a fair trial in South Africa.
Clifford, the celebrity publicist employed by Dewani to give his side of the story, insists the allegations against his client – which also include financial problems with his company and an alleged gay liaison with a German rentboy – are “ludicrous, and getting more ludicrous every day”.
Clifford insists that Shrien is at home “in a terrible state” over his wife’s death and that both families were planning to build a school in India as a memorial to Anni. - Saturday Star