Judge convicts hitman ‘hired to murder bride’

Prosecutors believe Xolile Mngeni was hired by Mrs Dewani’s British husband, Shrien, to carry out the killing in an attack designed to resemble a car hijacking in Cape Town’s impoverished Gugulethu township.

Mngeni, 25, was found guilty of premeditated murder after a judge at the Western Cape High Court heard an “avalanche of evidence” against him.

He was further convicted of robbery with aggravating circumstances and illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.

“The State has proven its case beyond reasonable doubt,” Judge Robert Henney told the court.

“The case against the accused is overwhelming and the accused could barely avoid the avalanche of evidence from crashing down on him.”

Mngeni was acquitted of Mrs Dewani’s kidnapping – deemed to have been part of a single chain of events leading to her murder.

He stood expressionless as the judgment was delivered while his family watched, wide-eyed, from the gallery above.

Businessman Shrien Dewani, who has been held at Fromeside Clinic, a secure mental health hospital in Bristol, is fighting extradition to South Africa. He continues to deny orchestrating the killing on November 13 2010.

Mrs Dewani, 28, was shot in the supposed carjacking as the newlyweds travelled by taxi through the outskirts of Cape Town. Her husband, 32, and driver Zola Tongo were ejected from the car before Mrs Dewani was driven away and killed.

The Swedish bride was later found dead in the back of the abandoned vehicle with a bullet wound to her neck.

Tongo, who has admitted his part in the crime, claimed in a plea agreement with prosecutors that Dewani ordered the carjacking and paid for a hit on his wife.

He received an 18-year prison sentence.

Accomplice Mziwamadoda Qwabe also pleaded guilty to charges over the murder.

Both Tongo and Qwabe said Dewani wanted it to appear as if he had nothing to do with his wife’s murder which was first thought to have been part of a robbery.

As part of his plea deal, Qwabe provided a statement to the court detailing how he and Mngeni staged the carjacking.

He told how he had driven the car while Mngeni aimed a 7.62 mm pistol at Mrs Dewani in the back seat before he pulled the trigger.

Qwabe said he stopped the car in panic before he got out to help Mngeni find the spent bullet casing. He threw this into a sewer before they fled the scene.

In a 60-page judgment, Judge Henney dismissed claims by Mngeni’s lawyer that his client had been set up for the killing.

He described Qwabe’s evidence against Mngeni as clear, precise, detailed and chronological, and said Qwabe came across as intelligent and did not contradict himself in the witness box.

He concluded: “Much of Qwabe’s evidence was corroborated by other witnesses and other evidence.”

The State called 26 witnesses to strengthen its case.

Lawyers for Mngeni, who denied the charges against him, said the defendant had surgery to remove a brain tumour last June and suffered seizures, blackouts and memory problems. He needed a walking frame to get into court.

In March the High Court temporarily halted Dewani’s extradition proceedings because of his poor mental health.