Man threatens pensioner with toy gun

Dewani copy cat!

A 24-year-old man is set to appear in a Western Cape court this week after he supposedly held a senior citizen hostage inside his home using a toy gun. The drama happened at an elderly couple’s home in Franschhoek’s central suburb on Sunday night. The woman managed to flee when the man broke into the house, apparently looking for money. He was eventually detained by hostage negotiators.

Police spokesperson André Traut said an exact court date has not been set. “He will make a curt appearance once he has been charged with kidnapping. We are investigating the matter. The man claims that he needed money. But the motive is unknown at this stage why he held the couple hostage,” he said.

He was apprehended after hostage negotiators and a special task team failed to talk the man out. “He held the couple hostage with a BB gun. The man was held hostage until negotiations failed,” Traut added

A love-struck stalker allegedly planned to copy the murder of Anni Dewani in a plot to kill the father of the woman he had been told to leave alone. Shumsheer Ghumman, an Indian national working as a high-flying equity-fund manager in London, is being investigated for allegedly wanting to hire a South African hit man to murder Philip Rhind, a Cape Town businessman. Ghumman became obsessed with Rhind’s daughter, Hannah, who rejected his amouress advances. Rhind warned him to stay away from her and British courts ordered Ghumman to stop pestering and stalking her.
The 32-year-old banker, who also has an Australian passport, made several court appearances in Cape Town and faces grave charges, including arson, attempted murder and malicious damage to property.

A charge of conspiracy to commit murder was included in the charge sheet. He was denied bail in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Friday and will appear in court again on February 8.
Western Cape police spokesman Constable Ricardo Davids said he was apprehended two weeks ago after a fire at Hannah’s family home in Clifton. “The attack on her family is apparently pay-back for the charge in the UK,” Davids said. The London Daily Mail claims, after discussion with Cape detectives, that Ghumman allegedly posed as an investigative reporter researching a story about professional assassins in his attempt to find someone to carry out the murder. He arrived in Cape Town on January 10. He is said to have approached Cape Town journalist Sandiso Phaliso, who writes for the West Cape News (WCN) agency, asking to meet unreformed hitmen as part of his research.

An article by Phaliso headlined “Easy to find a hit man - for as little as R5 000” appeared in the Weekend Argus in December. The article, written in the wake of the Anni Dewani murder, showed how easy it was to find a potential hit man in Cape Town’s townships. WCN boss Steve Kretzman yesterday said the article predated Ghumman approaching his agency to act as a “fixer”. The Daily Mail yesterday reported Ghumman had contacted Phaliso and another local journalist using e-mail, writing under the name “Michael”. In an e-mail, Ghumman even cited the Dewani case as his ideal blueprint.

“I do want to meet someone who has absolutely no compunction about behaving with appalling violence,” he is said to have written, adding, “The type of individuals who hijacked Anni and Shrien Dewani… would be ideal.” It has been reported the state will allege Ghumman’s appointed hit-man pulled out at the eleventh hour and told the police. According to the charges he faces, it seems the fixated fund manager decided to carry out the murder himself. The state alleges that at 3am on January 14, he allegedly threw three petrol bombs at Rhind’s mansion in Clifton, Cape Town, ngulfing the property in flames. Fortunately, Rhind and his wife, Deborah, were woken up by the alarm and escaped unhurt. Their daughter, who had been visiting, had flown home to London two days earlier.

“It has been extremely disturbing - horrifying,” Rhind told the Daily Mail. “The petrol bombs were aimed at the patio right under Hannah’s bedroom. I have no idea whether he thought Hannah was in there when he threw them.
“Two exploded and though it’s an old brick house, it could have burnt down. CCTV cameras later showed flames as high as the roof, but fortunately they were extinguished.”
Security cameras recorded the incident and Ghumman was later apprehended.
It began in spring 2009 when they met at the RAC Club in Pall Mall. He was an Indian national working for a Japanese asset management company.

Hannah Rhind, a graduate of Cape Town University and the London School of Economics, declined to comment on Friday.
But her father said: “This character seemed at first to be quite friendly and harmless.”
Hannah agreed to a date with Ghumman, but was apparently not awed or eager to see him again. He felt very strongly and allegedly began following her and bombarding her with text messages and e-mails, to the point where she became to afraid to turn on her laptop.
By July 2009, she was so concerned that she called her father, a former HSBC executive now based in Cape Town, where he holds a senior post in a company with interests in diamonds and other minerals. Rhind called Ghumman and warned him to stay away from his daughter but, he says, the young banker seemed to find this “amusing”. A day or two later, the e-mails and texts messages allegedly began again.
Finally, Hannah, who became scarred, went to the police. In December 2009, Westminster magistrates issued a restraining order against Ghumman. Instead of desisting, however, he seemingly made her father the new target of his campaign. “He sent me extraordinary emails - they were outrageous,” says Rhind. “But at least he was harassing me, not Hannah.”
Rhind complained to police yet again and, in August, Ghumman was found guilty of harassment by magistrates near his South London home. He was ordered to do 180 hours of community service and fined. Until last month, father and daughter haven’t heard anything more of him. Then, on January 14, came the petrol bomb attack.