S African Indian man gets life for plotting wife's murder

Rajive Sewnarain, 42, admitted to have paid an employee identified only as Boxer R30,000 to arrange the killing of his wife Shenaaz, 40.

'Boxer' had approached Sewnarain and offered him to "take his wife out of his life".

Sewnarain told the men, whom he had arranged to ambush his car on December 10, to shoot him in the shoulder to make the attack appear more realistic.

The case bears considerable similarities to what police say happened in the murder of Indo-Swedish honeymooner Anni Dewani in an apparent carjack in Cape Town last month.

Ann's British husband Shrien Dewani has been named by one of her killers as the one who arranged her murder in an apparent botched hijacking in Cape Town last month.

Police are now investigating allegations that Dewani paid two men and his taxi driver 1,400 pounds to murder his wife.

Announcing the verdict, Magistrate Sharon Marks said that he had little sympathy for Sewnarain's mitigation of a tumultuous marriage in which he and his wife were constantly fighting.

"You could have sought advice from a counselor or even divorced your wife," Marks said, adding that his plea of guilty would not get him a reduced sentence.

"It might lead people to believe that they could take the law into their own hands. Your actions speak of a flagrant disregard for the sanctity of human life," Marks said.

Two accomplices in the murder are still to appear in court.

Four weeks before she died in the shooting incident on 10 December, Shenaaz had survived five bullet wounds an alleged robbery attempt, but this is now also being probed as a possible hit attempt by police.