Cape Town - The decision to let British businessman
Shrien Dewani walk free is worrying for female victims of violence, the
National Freedom Party Youth Movement (NFPYM) said on Monday.
"It seems criminals have more powers and rights than
us civil citizens," the movement's secretary general Maria Busi Tshabalala
said.
"As women we are no longer safe because people who
abuse and kill us are let off the hook like it's a fashion statement."
She said women in strategic judicial position were
failing female victims and it was no wonder that citizens were taking the law
into their own hands.
Western Cape High Court Deputy Judge President Jeanette
Traverso on Monday granted Dewani's application for his discharge on the charge
of killing his wife Anni in 2010.
"There is no evidence on which a reasonable man can
convict the accused," she said.
It was her opinion that the evidence presented fell far
below the required threshold.
She said it was regrettable that many unanswered
questions remained about what happened the night Anni was killed, but she could
not be swayed by public opinion.
"If any court allowed public opinion or emotion to
influence the application of the law it would lead to anarchy," she said.
The only possible reason to refuse Dewani's application
was in the hope of him implicating himself during his evidence, which Traverso
said would be an injustice.
After a lengthy and costly extradition process, Dewani
went on trial in October for allegedly plotting with shuttle taxi driver Zola
Tongo and others to kill his wife Anni while they were on honeymoon in Cape
Town in November 2010.
He pleaded not guilty to charges including kidnapping,
murder and defeating the ends of justice. He claimed the couple was hijacked
while Tongo drove them through Gugulethu in his minibus on Saturday, 13 November
2010.
He was released unharmed and Anni was driven away. She
was found shot dead in the abandoned minibus in Khayelitsha the next morning.
Tongo is serving an 18-year jail term and Mziwamadoda
Qwabe a 25-year jail term. Xolile Mngeni was serving life in jail for firing
the shot that killed Anni, but died in prison from a brain tumour on 18 October.
Hotel receptionist Monde Mbolombo, 35, was granted
immunity from prosecution on two charges during Mngeni's trial.
During Dewani's trial, he was warned he faced the same
five charges as Dewani and had to answer truthfully before a decision on
immunity could be made.
Traverso ruled on Monday that she would not grant him
immunity.
