Shrien Dewani ‘agreed price for wife murder’

British businessman Shrien Dewani agreed to pay about £1,300 to a hitman for the murder of his wife Anni in South Africa, a court has been told.

On the second day of the trial in Cape Town, Mziwamadoda Qwabe said he was asked to make it look like a hijacking.

Mr Dewani, 34, from Bristol, denies murdering his wife Anni, 28, on their honeymoon in 2010.

The couple were held at gunpoint while being driven in a taxi through Gugulethu township near Cape Town.

Qwabe told the Western Cape High Court that taxi driver Zola Tonga had told him “there was a husband who wanted his wife to be killed”.

Mr Dewani faces five charges, including murder and lying about the circumstances of Swedish national Anni’s death.

Qwabe, from Cape Town, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2012 for the murder of Anni Dewani.

Prosecutors claim Mr Dewani conspired with him, and other Cape Town residents Zola Tongo and Xolile Mngeni.

Qwabe, 29, told the court Tongo phoned him and said he had a job that needed to be done – that someone needed to be killed.

He said Tongo agreed to meet him the next day to discuss the murder, and a price of 15,000 rand (about £1,330 at the exchange rate at the time) was agreed.

The pair then arranged to meet up with Tongo’s taxi for the attack, during which Mr Dewani’s phone would also be taken.

He told the court the money was due to be left in a “cubby hole” in the vehicle which would later be split before the pair spent an evening “socialising”.

Qwabe was asked if there was any discussion about a weapon. He said: “I knew there would be a firearm involved.”

He told the court Tongo called him later and told him the route the taxi would take on the evening of 13 November 2010. BBC