She Was Married for Just Days—Then Her Honeymoon Turned Into an International Murder Mystery
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So on 7th of November 2010, Annie and Sharon Prakash arrive in South Africa for their honeymoon.
They spent several days at Krueger National Park and then they decided to travel to Cape Town to see the breathtaking view of the port seeds.
On 12th of November, they checked into a five-star Cape Grace hotel and hired a local cab driver, Tongo, as a tour guide.
On 13th of November 2010, while being driven by Tongo through the Gou Lata township on the outskirt of Cape Town, the Diwanist taxi is hijacked by two armed men around 10:45 pm Tongo the driver later stated he was forced out of the vehicle at a gunpoint.
Sharon was robbed of his wallet.
watch and cell phone and then ejected from the taxi after about 20 minutes unharmed.
However, the hijacker drove off with Annie still in the car.
Prakash sought for help and reported the incident to the police around 11:30 pm explaining that armed assaulters had taken his wife in a carjacking on 14th of November 2010 early the next morning.
Police found that Dwani’s abandoned gray Volkswagen taxi in the west of the township with Annie’s body in the back seat.
She had been shot at a close range.
A postmortem confirmed a single gunshot wound on her neck.
Several of Annie’s belongings, a diamond brass letter, handbag, and a Blackberry phone were missing.
This is how consistent with the robbery motive.
Right.
But Prakash as the sole survivor of the attack was questioned by the South African police and he was returned to the UK on 16th November after cooperating initial inquiries here itself raises too many questions isn’t it? So on 16th November 2010, police made the first breakthrough.
Fingerprints found from the Diwani taxi led them to a 26-year-old Zulli, a man who was swiftly arrested and charged with hijacking and murder.
Within days, two more names surfaced and the name was Ms.
Momada.
He was picked on 18th of November confessed to his role in the hijacking and pointed to the hotel receptionist.
Mondo as the middleman.
Soon after the police turned towards the couple’s own driver, Tongo, who was surrendered to the police on 20th of November, claiming to be an victim, until police uncovered evidence linking him directly to the killers.
What had started as a robbery now looked like a planned contract killing.
Tongo struck a plea deal admitting hijacking and stabbing Sherid Diwani himself had an offer of 15,000 rand to have Annie murdered.
He was sentenced to 18 years in prison while the same day British police arrested Sheron and Bristol on the conspiracy to the murder.
The following day, 8th December 2010, Sheron appeared in a London court as South Africa launched extradition proceedings.
His lawyer claiming he was mentally unfit, suffering from acute stress and depression after the ordal.
What began as a shocking carjacking soon turned into one of South Africa’s most internationally watched murder investigations as the suspects were rounded up a tangled of web confessions plea and contradictions began to unfold within a week.
Three men were in custody and the statements pointed one unexpected direction.
and that is the husband himself.
Each of the arrested men told police the same story that the murder was not a random crime but a contract killing which was arranged by Sharon Prakash.
The driver Tongo claimed Sherin had offered him money to stage the fake hijacking.
Tongo’s testimony changed everything.
The honeymoon murder was now a fullblown conspiracy case.
Sharon Praash, the grieving husband seen crying at his wife’s funeral, was suddenly being portrayed as the prime suspect in the murder.
The South African authorities requested his extradition but Shireen lawyers argued that he was mentally unfit suffering from trauma stress and severe depression.
For the next 3 years he remained in the psychiatric care while legal battles dragged on between London and Cape Town.
Finally, in the year April 2014, Sharon was moved to South Africa to stand trial for his wife’s murder, the courtroom in Cape Town became a stage for one of most sensational trials in the modern South African history.
So the question here is why did husband murder his wife on honeymoon? That’s barely not even a month into the marriage.
So first let’s understand what was the motive.
By late October 2010, the newly wet couple were supposed to be living their fairy tide life.
But behind everything, a lavish photograph, something was already breaking.
According to the court documents later revealed that just days after their wedding, Hannie sent a series of emails and text message to her family and friends in Sweden saying she wrote about feeling lonely and misunderstood and even said she was thinking about leaving Shiran Prakash.
She felt he was controlling, he was cold, and at the same time he was distant.
On October 20, 2014, during the trial, the court heard both messages.
Prosecutor painted a chilling picture of a woman desperate to escape and a man desperate to hide his truth.
So, you might wonder what that truth is, right? Because Sharon, as it later emerged, had been leading a double life.
Sharon was wealthy, powerful.
He had no reasons to lead a double life.
Yet, he chose to lead a double life and he had allegedly been in secret relationship with men, even visiting male escort in the months before his wedding.
The prosecution argued that Sharon’s sexuality while he was never criminal had become a source of shame in his conservative Indian business family and that he felt trapped.
>> And now Annie Dwani’s parents say the man accused of killing their daughter lied to her and he lied to them.
That man never ever told us none of the family members that he was a bisexual and he slept with men prostitutes.
So Sharon feared that a divorce so soon after a lavish international wedding would cause families embarrassment and public humiliation.
So he wanted a way out, an escape that would make him look like a victim but not like a villain.
That they claimed was his motive.
A marriage he couldn’t live with, a secret he couldn’t reveal and a solution he thought no one would ever question to eliminate his wife during the honeymoon.
And that was the reason he planned to South Africa’s most dangerous place during that time.
When Sharon and Annie arrived in South Africa on 7th November 2010, everything looked perfect.
Romantic dinners, scenic drives, and luxury lodges.
The honeymoon that every couple dreams of.
But later prosecutors claimed the plan was already in motion.
Between 8th and 12th of November, Sharon secretly met with the driver, Tongo, at the Cape Grace Hotel.
In his later confession, Tongo said Sharon approached him with a deadly opportunity to stage a fake hijacking in which Annie would be killed while Sharon escaped unharmed.
Tongo then reached out to his friend Mondo, a hotel receptionist who knew men in the Cape Town underworld.
Through Mondo, two gang members named Mimodora and Zoli were recruited.
They agreed to carry out the stage hijacking for 15,000 rand around €1,000 at the time.
The plan was simple.
The couple would go out for a night drive and the car would be ambushed in a township.
The husband would be released safely and the wife would not come back.
At around 8:30 pm, the couple left the Cape Grace Hotel with Tongo driving.
After dinner at the Surfside restaurant, Tongo diverted the route through where the two hired gunmen waited and at around 10:45 pm The ambushed happened exactly as planned.
Tongo was forced out of the car at a gunpoint.
Sharon was robbed and ejected unharmed about 20 minutes later.
Hy was driving away alone, terrified, unaware that this wasn’t a robbery, but her execution.
By 6:00 am next morning, her body was found in the backseat of the taxi abandoned.
A single gunshot wound to the neck, a watch brasslet phone gone missing.
Props in a crime stage to look like a random township hijacking.
But unfortunately, it was a planned murder by her husband during a honeymoon.
And an innocent Annie has lost her life because of her husband’s double life and his interest in men.
He would have just divorced.
He would have told the lawyers that he’s not interested.
A innocent Annie would be alive today.
During 2011 and 2013, there was a legal tug of war between the UK and the South Africa.
While the South Africa demanded his extradition, Sharon’s defense lawyer said he was mentally unfit to stand trial.
Suffering from post-traumatic stress and severe depression for 3 years, the case stalled in the British court.
And in April 2014, the Cape Town after long negotiation proc was finally extradited.
The trail opened on October 6, 2014 at the Western Cape High Court before judge.
The prosecution narrative was Shireen planned the murder to escape an unwanted marriage and hired a local man to stage the hijacking, but the defense said he was a victim of a genuine robbery.
The criminals blamed him to cut plea deals and this went for the weeks.
[snorts] Each witness Tongo Mondo told a version riddled with inconsistence.
Phone records clashed with timelines, statements changed, and evidence appeared not to be true.
So on December 8, 2014, “The case was too weak to proceed,” was said by the judge.
“The evidence of the state’s witness is so poor that one cannot know where the lies end and where the truth begins.
” And Praash was admitted and walked free.
>> Okay, you guys.
>> Are you a free man? >> No, you’re a free man.
You can’t please push me out.
Are you Johnson from the >> Annie’s family was in shock.
For 4 years, they had flown from Sweden to South Africa seeking justice.
only to watch the man who orchestrated her death walk away cleared.
The hitman’s remained behind the bar while Sharon walked freely.
Yet no court ever proved who truly ordered the killing.
Annie’s parents we know and Nim have since spoken publicly saying, “We may never know what really happened that night, but we will never stop asking why.
” In the years followed, lot of documentaries, books, and TV specialists discussed every frame of the story.
But they think it’s a mystery remain unsolved.
Was it a tragic hijacking that went too far, or it was meticulously planned murder disguised as one? What started as a honeymoon ended as a headline.
A marriage built on appearances.
A mother wrapped in mystery handed truth that vanished in the shadows of Cape Town’s night.
I’m Sai from Espeer Reports.
Unmasking crime and one story at a time.
