Why is Dewani being compared to Shaik?

Judge Howard Riddle excused Shrien Dewani from attending Thursday’s preliminary extradition hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, which was postponed to February 8 for the purpose of the formal proceedings.

As reported earlier today British publicist Max Clifford said that Shrien did not need to attend court because it is a 20-minute formality to fix a date for a future hearing, in addition to which he did not think that anyone from Dewani’s family would be attending.

His absence created an unnecessary stir in the media, which the court simply ignored, dealt with the issue and moved on.

According to Shrien’s legal team a psychiatrist has diagnosed their client as having acute stress disorder and depressive adjustment disorder.

Immediately after the news broke that Dewani would not be present, tweets began drawing comparisons between Dewani and Schabir Shaik according to Times Live.

Why?

There is absolutely no comparison between the two cases.

If you want to compare apples with apples then Shaik and Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi may have merit, as I will discuss below, but Shrien isn’t even remotely related in terms of similarity other than both happened to have seen doctors.

So do billions of people.

And before people become sceptical about those illnesses consider this :

Dewani, before the media circus, was probably the same as many of the people reading this article.

If he is innocent then he has undergone one of the most severe traumas you can experience — death of a spouse — while on his honeymoon with Anni Dewani.

Think about that.

Then horror of horrors he became the suspect of masterminding her death.

Worse the media have made it the biggest crime story on the planet so everything he does is under a microscope and half the planet thinks he is guilty.

If you think you could manage that stress, think again.

If he is guilty and believed that this would slip under the radar as just another hijacking gone wrong then imagine his predicament right now.

Suddenly in the full glare of the police focus after the allegations made by Zola Tongo.

Instead of being welcomed home a victim of South Africa’s shocking crime rate and then forgotten, he is the focus of a planet with the South African authorities refusing to bow to insults as they vow to bring him back.

Of course while preparing for the various court attendances Shrien would have heard the worst of everything that South African prisons, judges and the like have to offer.

If you think you could manage that stress, think again.

I have no doubt that either way his family and friends’ concerns for his health right now are fully justified.

Returning to Shaik :

He is a friend and former financial adviser to President Jacob Zuma who was sentenced to 15 years for fraud and corruption after allegedly channelling funds from an arms deal company to Zuma.

While in prison he spent more time in hospital than anywhere else before being released on medical parole.

In accordance with South African law he was only entitled to medical parole if he was “in the final stages of terminal illness”.

This means about three months to live or at death’s door.

He was released in March of 2009 and to date no word of his demise has reached us.

Furious debates about whether to pardon him, yes, but obituaries no.

The allegations are that the reason why Shaik got early medical parole was due to political considerations.

Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, dubbed the Lockerbie Bomber, was convicted, by a panel of three Scottish judges of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21 1988 and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

It involved 270 counts of murder.

Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government on August 20 2009 following doctors reporting on August 10 2009 that he had terminal prostate cancer and was expected to have about three months to live.

Like Shaik, Megrahi has exceeded doctors’ expectations dramatically.

The US, which was furious at the release, has accused Britain of releasing Megrahi for political reasons in that they wanted to conclude agreements with Libya over certain oil ventures.

Both cases involve medical parole and both have allegations of political undercurrents being responsible for circumventing the legal system of the countries concerned.

Dewani is an ordinary human being, thrust into the limelight, who right now has to be suffering enormous psychological stress.

His high profile does not, however, make him comparable to men who have been involved with affairs of state or politics at a level far beyond anything Shrien could even dream of.