As the Cape Town High Court threw out honeymoon murder suspect Shrien Dewani's case and cleared him of all charges, his wife, Anni's family has said that they had been "failed by the justice system."
The British millionaire was accused of orchestrating the murder of Anni during their honeymoon in Cape Town in November 2010.
Judge Jeanette Traverso said that the evidence presented by the state in the case fell "far below the threshold" of what a reasonable court could convict on and that it was "riddled with contradictions," reported the BBC.
The judge said that the only reason to not clear Dewani of the murder charges would be in the hope that he would implicate himself by giving evidence. She added that the onus to prove that Dewani had entered into an agreement to have Anni killed was on the state.
The prosecution had claimed that Dewani had hired men to kill Anni for 15,000 rand. However, the judge said that taxi driver Zola Tongo and accomplices Mziwamadoda Qwabe and Xolile Mngeni were "intelligent men" and dismissed the state's claim that they could have murdered someone for a contract worth "a few thousand rand."
Dewani denied all the charges throughout the trial and claimed that the two were hijacked at gunpoint as they drove through Gugulethu in a taxi.
He escaped unharmed but his wife's body was found in the abandoned car the next day.
