Shrien Dewani trial: Murderer of Anni Dewani says he was told 'a man wants his spouse dead’
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Your support makes all the difference.A hitman convicted of murdering the wife of Briton Shrien Dewani claims that the killing was the result of a plot instigated by a man who “wanted his spouse dead”.
Mziwamadoda Qwabe, 29, came face-to-face with Mr Dewani for the first time since the shooting of Anni Dewani, as he told a South African court that he and an accomplice had demanded £830 for the contract killing and spent barely 24 hours plotting it. The former tour guide told Western Cape High Court he had been contacted by Zola Tongo – the taxi driver hired by Mr Dewani in Cape Town – and told: “Somebody needs to be killed.”
Qwabe is one of the three men, including Tongo, who have previously been convicted of murdering Mrs Dewani four years ago, during what prosecutors claim was a staged hijacking-gone-wrong arranged by her bisexual husband. On the second day of Mr Dewani’s trial for the alleged murder of his wife on their honeymoon, Qwabe, who is serving a 25-year jail term, told of the perfunctory negotiations behind the crime on 13 November 2010 and the moments leading up to it.
The court heard that Tongo contacted Qwabe and his accomplice, Xolile Mngeni, via a mutual friend on 12 November and told them there was “job” that needed to be done. Qwabe said he agreed a fee of 15,000 rand (£834), adding: “There was a husband who wanted his wife to be killed.”
Qwabe said Tongo stipulated that the hit should be made to look like a hijacking and that nothing should happen to Mr Dewani or the taxi driver.
In testimony that at points reduced family members of both Anni Dewani and her husband to tears, Qwabe related how he had received a call from Tongo, while the newlyweds were at a restaurant, to be told that the killing must happen within hours.
Qwabe said: “[Tongo] told me... the husband wanted the wife to be killed that same evening.”
Describing the carjacking, Qwabe said Mngeni had stopped Tongo’s Volkswagen Sharan at gunpoint. They ordered the taxi driver out of the car, as he had told them in Xhosa that the money for the killing was in a compartment in the front of the vehicle.
After then ordering Mr Dewani from the car, Qwabe continued: “I heard a gun shot. [Mngeni] said, ‘I shot the lady’. I pulled over on the pavement and stopped the car. I saw [Anni] was on the back seat of the car.”
Once the car had been abandoned and the proceeds from the killing split with his partner, Qwabe spent the rest of the evening “socialising”.
Mr Dewani, 34, from Bristol, denies five charges including murder and lying about the circumstances of his wife’s death. The case continues.