Anni Ninna Dewani was a Swedish woman of Indian origin who was murdered while on her honeymoon in South Africa after the taxi in which she and her husband were travelling was hijacked.
Arrests were made in the days following the crime; hijackers Mziwamadoda Qwabe and Xolile Mngeni, and hotel receptionist Monde Mbolombo admitted to their involvement in an unintentionally fatal robbery and kidnapping. Facing life in prison, Qwabe and Mbolombo later changed their stories to allege the crime had been a premeditated murder for hire at the behest of Anni’s husband Shrien Dewani. Taxi driver Zola Tongo initially claimed to be an innocent victim of the incident but, faced with the weight of evidence implicating him in the crime and in the wake of his fellow conspirators’ allegations of a “murder for hire” plot, he too changed his story to allege the husband was the instigator. Attractive plea bargains were offered to the conspirators in exchange for future testimony in legal proceedings related to the crime. The allegation of the husband’s involvement made global headlines; Shrien Dewani’s supporters emphatically denied the accusations, saying it was “ludicrous” to suggest he had solicited an attack on his wife from the first taxi driver he met within hours of their arrival in Cape Town.
I advised the panorama team on many aspects of this case and was interviewed at length as part of the TV programme.