City fund manager jailed for nine years over plot to murder PR executive's father

Donnerstag, 31. Mai 2012

City fund manager jailed for nine years over plot to murder PR executive's father

A formerly high-flying City fund manager has been sentenced to nine years in a South African prison after he arranged for a hitman to murder the British father of an attractive PR executive he had become infatuated with.

Lawyer William Booth and Hannah Rhind outside the Cape Town magistrate court

Shumsheer Ghumman offered to pay an alleged township gangster £850 to kill Hannah Rhind's father Philip, a wealthy oil company executive now living in Cape Town, South Africa.

Ghumman found the man by pretending to be an investigative journalist reporting on the murder of Anni Dewani, who was allegedly killed on her honeymoon in Cape Town by two hitmen hired by her husband.

However, the "hitman" hired by Ghumman pulled out of the deal, prompting him to try and complete the job himself by throwing lit Molotov cocktails – marked with the words "4 Hannah" at the Rhind family's seafront villa.

In February, he was convicted of fraud, incitement to commit murder, attempted murder and malicious injury to property in a Cape Town court.

The city's magistrates' court heard how the 33-year-old developed an obsession with Miss Rhind, 30, after meeting her at a dinner party in London in 2009 when she was a PR executive for the Roche pharmaceutical company and he was working for Japanese firm Daiwa Asset Management.

Ghumman bombarded the attractive blonde with emails, telephone calls and SMS text messages, and was eventually convicted, in October 2010, of harassment at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

He appealed and, in an attempt to prevent Miss Rhind's father giving evidence at his appeal hearing, launched his attempted murder plot.

Prosecutor Billy Downer revealed that Ghumman had previously received a police caution for harassing another 24-year-old woman in London.

He said his harassment of Ms Rhind and her family had been "brutal, cruel and cowardly" as well as "morally repugnant and served to satisfy the accused's selfish needs."

"It is only by the greatest good fortune that the Rhinds were not burned to death, as the accused intended", he added.

Judge Herman Pieters on Thursday sentenced him to a nine years jail term, to be served in South Africa. Taking into account his time on remand and parole laws, he could be released in three.

Speaking outside court on Thursday, Ms Rhind's father described his ordeal as a "nightmare".

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Donnerstag, 31. Mai 2012