Honeymoon murder suspect admitted to psychiatric clinic after overdose
The businessman accused of hiring a hitman to murder his wife on their South African honeymoon is set to be admitted to hospital for full-time psychiatric care.
Shrien Dewani, 31, has agreed to be admitted to The Priory hospital in Bristol as he fights against extradition.
Doctors say he will be subject to observation every 15 minutes in the clinic.
Mr Dewani is wanted in South Africa to stand trial for murder after being implicated in a plot to kill his Swedish born wife Anni last November. He denies the allegation.
Dewani has been on bail since his arrest under an extradition warrant and last month took a massive overdose of drugs.
He swallowed a cocktail of up to 46 tablets at his home in Bristol after "voicing an intent to commit suicide". As a result the South African authorities applied for his bail to be revoked for his own protection.
Today District Judge Howard Riddle said the South Africans now agree, in principle, that Mr Dewani should be admitted to the clinic where he will be under the care of consultant psychiatrist Dr Paul Dedman.
But their lawyers argued at Belmarsh magistrates' court that he should still be subject to an electronic tag and a curfew.
Julian Knowles QC, defending, said that this was a "sticking point" and that Mr Dewani should be allowed, as part of his treatment, to enter the private hospital's grounds which at present would be banned under his curfew.
He said that it was a question of where was the "best therapeutic environment" to ensure Mr Dewani recovered his health as quickly as possible.
"He would be under much closer supervision by the doctors in
The Priory than he was when on bail at home. There is no danger of him absconding as he is not physically or mentally capable of making such arrangements," said Mr Knowles.
The court heard that Mr Dewani also felt "humiliated" by being forced, under his bail conditions, to report daily to a local police station.
He found that he was "running the gauntlet" under the glare of media attention. Mr Knowles said that the reporting requirements would interfere with Mr Dewani's treatment programme.
Mr Dewani - who has consistently denied any wrongdoing - was travelling in a taxi with new wife Anni
on the outskirts of Cape Town on November 13 when the car was hijacked.
She was found dead in the back of an abandoned cab with a bullet wound to her neck after cabbie Zola Tongo drove the newlyweds to the township.
He claimed his vehicle was hijacked and that he and Mr Dewani were ejected before Mrs Dewani was driven away and killed.
