In South African courts, a suspect in a joint-venture crime can be offered a form of clemency in return for revealing which of his/her associates had organizing roles in the crime, e.g. bit.ly/pleabarg. Such plea bargaining is not considered good practice in the UK: 
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Xolile Mngeni was a resident of the Cape Flats who had cancer. He rejected an offer of a plea bargain from the Western Cape High Court, insisting that his statement of 16/11/2010 was the truth. He wasn't willing to submit a second statement which would cast him as a murder-conspirator, even if it earned him a much shorter prison term. It was apartheid-trained Attorney William da Grass who wanted him to say that there had been a plan to kill Anni Dewani during the hold-up of the taxi.
Mngeni was at the bottom of the pecking order and he had previously known only one of the three men who were taking part in the 'plea and sentencing agreements'. He'd never met the two who had jobs and earned more than he could ever have dreamed of. Judge Robert Henney welcomed the 'contract-to-kill' explanation of the pre-arranged taxi hijack. He condemned Mngeni in the strongest terms, saying that he was 'the shooter’, even though it was Qwabe (the other poor man) who brought the gun. During the trial of Shrien Dewani, four years later, Judge Janet Traverso rejected the jumbled statements of the three accusers. However, no correction of Henney's rulings was made. Instead, the plea bargains were re-asserted in 2015: enca/DPP (no longer online but see the Wiki page pasted below.)
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People have become victims of some horrific crimes while travelling in South Africa since the 1990's. "In 2015/16, police recorded 14,602 carjacking incidents .. 40 cars per day" crime-stats. However, when newly-weds from Europe became victims in November 2010, the version of events promoted was one in which the husband was instigator. It was suggested that the crime was much worse than anything a South African would do without some alien influence. Patricia De Lille, who then became the mayor of Cape Town, went as far as saying that the crime was "compounded by the abuse of South Africans". telegraph
Preamble
In November 2010, three criminals in Cape Town were urged by an attorney to accuse a British subject of having paid them to kill his newlywed wife. A hotel receptionist named Mbolombo had done the human resourcing for the 'hijack' of the taxi, but he received complete immunity in exchange for his testimony. His taxi-driving friend, Zola Tongo, and the accomplice who possessed the handgun, Qwabe, had their custodial sentences reduced by the W. Cape High Court. Tongo was the only one who had spoken with Shrien Dewani before the homicide took place.
Some Tories supported a request for extradition:
Plea bargains are rarely permitted in Britain and there was no concrete evidence that implicated Dewani. However, our Home Secretary Theresa May granted his extradition after she was reassured by the South African officials that they 'had plea bargains' to work from.¹ There had been an internet petition asking Mrs May to take advice from Judge Riddle and the Immigration Minister Damien Green, both of whom favoured extradition.² Another Tory MP, Dr Liam Fox, did not suggest that the accused man might be innocent, but he did say that extradition might put him into an unsafe situation. (Dr Fox was chided for showing this concern: dailystar.) In response, three British judges wrote that it would "not be cruel or unjust" to send a man into custody in Cape Town. Dewani was held until he could be made to face the death-dealing accusers in April 2014: BBC. ("CPS solicitors spent 496 hours on the case": itv/news.) Also see the 2014 South African report, last line: the State believed it had a "water-tight case".
In 2013, BBC Panorama claimed that the South African Police Service had not done an investigation which would pass muster in Europe: Panor'13. British experts said that the evidence revealed an unplanned firing of the gun. - The path of the bullet showed that the gun had not been aimed directly at Anni in a way that suggested an execution. Panorama did lots more research and every detail they came up with was consistent with Xolile Mngeni's statement, i.e. Tongo and Mbolombo had only planned to have the Dewanis robbed during a staged 'hijack' of the taxi. Mngeni was there to help Qwabe hold the taxi up and do the mugging.
On arriving in Cape Town, the BBC team got busy looking for CCTV evidence, and they found plenty. Lunchtime CCTV from the foyer of the Colosseum Hotel on 13/11/2010, many hours before the crime, showed Tongo talking openly with receptionists about "R10,000" for a "helicopter trip" for "rich people". Later in the afternoon, receptionist Mbolombo talks privately with Tongo on an office telephone. He can be heard telling Tongo to give some of the money to their two accomplices in the Gugulethu township, as an appetizer for robbing the Dewanis later that night. "Also, take your share" he says to Tongo.
Preamble
In November 2010, three criminals in Cape Town were urged by an attorney to accuse a British subject of having paid them to kill his newlywed wife. A hotel receptionist named Mbolombo had done the human resourcing for the 'hijack' of the taxi, but he received complete immunity in exchange for his testimony. His taxi-driving friend, Zola Tongo, and the accomplice who possessed the handgun, Qwabe, had their custodial sentences reduced by the W. Cape High Court. Tongo was the only one who had spoken with Shrien Dewani before the homicide took place.
Some Tories supported a request for extradition:
Plea bargains are rarely permitted in Britain and there was no concrete evidence that implicated Dewani. However, our Home Secretary Theresa May granted his extradition after she was reassured by the South African officials that they 'had plea bargains' to work from.¹ There had been an internet petition asking Mrs May to take advice from Judge Riddle and the Immigration Minister Damien Green, both of whom favoured extradition.² Another Tory MP, Dr Liam Fox, did not suggest that the accused man might be innocent, but he did say that extradition might put him into an unsafe situation. (Dr Fox was chided for showing this concern: dailystar.) In response, three British judges wrote that it would "not be cruel or unjust" to send a man into custody in Cape Town. Dewani was held until he could be made to face the death-dealing accusers in April 2014: BBC. ("CPS solicitors spent 496 hours on the case": itv/news.) Also see the 2014 South African report, last line: the State believed it had a "water-tight case".
On arriving in Cape Town, the BBC team got busy looking for CCTV evidence, and they found plenty. Lunchtime CCTV from the foyer of the Colosseum Hotel on 13/11/2010, many hours before the crime, showed Tongo talking openly with receptionists about "R10,000" for a "helicopter trip" for "rich people". Later in the afternoon, receptionist Mbolombo talks privately with Tongo on an office telephone. He can be heard telling Tongo to give some of the money to their two accomplices in the Gugulethu township, as an appetizer for robbing the Dewanis later that night. "Also, take your share" he says to Tongo.
Regardless of what Mbolombo was saying, Tongo had decided to keep all of Shrien's helicopter-tour money for himself: If the hijack had gone as planned (i.e. with no gun-fire, nobody hurt), he would have told Shrien later that he’d secured the money in the taxi's glove compartment and it had been discovered by the hijackers when they took the vehicle.
That phone conversation showed that Tongo had the often-quoted "R10,000" more than eight hours before he brought the Dewanis to the hijack rendezvous in Gugulethu. BBC Panorama observed that the CCTV showed Mbolombo to be much more involved in the hijack than was suggested by his total immunity, but they didn't observe that it showed Tongo to be a liar whenever he subsequently said that Shrien put R10,000 into "a pouch" in his taxi, during the drive to the hold-up.
SA Police approached Mbolombo after the two Gugulethu accomplices (Mngeni and Qwabe) had been arrested in the township. There was no suggestion of a murder contract in the initial statements made by the accomplices. It was only after Willem da Grass (the apartheid-era attorney) spoke with Mbolombo that a 'murder-contract' was mentioned. It was da Grass who then organized complete immunity for Mbolombo after he'd guided Qwabe in making a similar, new statement. (Mngeni could not be persuaded to change his statement which he had dictated to police, visible in a video recording in Panor'13.) Da Grass was soon able to guide Tongo to say the same thing, more or less, as Mbolombo and Qwabe.
That phone conversation showed that Tongo had the often-quoted "R10,000" more than eight hours before he brought the Dewanis to the hijack rendezvous in Gugulethu.
BBC Panorama observed that the CCTV showed Mbolombo to be much more involved in the hijack than was suggested by his total immunity, but they didn't observe that it showed Tongo to be a liar whenever he subsequently said that Shrien put R10,000 into "a pouch" in his taxi, during the drive to the hold-up.
SA Police approached Mbolombo after the two Gugulethu accomplices (Mngeni and Qwabe) had been arrested in the township. There was no suggestion of a murder contract in the initial statements made by the accomplices. It was only after Willem da Grass (the apartheid-era attorney) spoke with Mbolombo that a 'murder-contract' was mentioned. It was da Grass who then organized complete immunity for Mbolombo after he'd guided Qwabe in making a similar, new statement. (Mngeni could not be persuaded to change his statement which he had dictated to police, visible in a video recording in Panor'13.) Da Grass was soon able to guide Tongo to say the same thing, more or less, as Mbolombo and Qwabe.
When Tongo was arrested on 20/11/2010, i.e. seven days after the crime, it would have been Attorney da Grass who worked with him to make a new 'murder-contract' story, as he'd already helped Qwabe and Mbolombo to make: Now, Tongo could state that Shrien placed R10,000 in the taxi in the hour of the crime as payment for a hit-man. (If it was said that Shrien had handed him R10,000 earlier in the day, as is evident from the Colosseum CCTV footage, and that it was 'for a hit', it would be very obvious that Tongo could have simply walked away with the money: Shrien wouldn't have been able to pursue him, because the police could then have been told, 'what Shrien had been up to', surely?)
When Tongo was arrested on 20/11/2010, i.e. seven days after the crime, it would have been Attorney da Grass who worked with him to make a new 'murder-contract' story, as he'd already helped Qwabe and Mbolombo to make: Now, Tongo could state that Shrien placed R10,000 in the taxi in the hour of the crime as payment for a hit-man. (If it was said that Shrien had handed him R10,000 earlier in the day, as is evident from the Colosseum CCTV footage, and that it was 'for a hit', it would be very obvious that Tongo could have simply walked away with the money: Shrien wouldn't have been able to pursue him, because the police could then have been told, 'what Shrien had been up to', surely?)
Note: Shrien's defence attorney suspected that Tongo did make a police-station statement before he could be offered a plea bargain by da Grass, and that he wouldn't have mentioned a murder conspiracy in that first confession (even 'if' Mbolombo had called him and suggested it.) However, such statement could not be found when court proceedings were underway: 'News24' (no longer available but see the url: www.news24.com/News24/Tongo-probed-on-mystery-statement-20141029). Surely, the police who made the arrests would have taken a statement from Tongo straight away, just as they did from Mngeni and Qwabe? Without being offered a plea bargain at that early stage, would Tongo have been eager to do what Mbolombo suggested in a phone call to him after the crime, i.e. to say that he'd been involved in a murder conspiracy? (Mbolombo is likely to have suggested the 'hit' idea to Tongo by phone, after hearing what had happened in Gugulethu. He would have quickly sensed that turning Shrien into a 'person-of-interest' would take some of the heat off himself, who'd recruited Qwabe, the one with the gun.)
Make use of Ctrl+F to find 'grass' in an article which shows arrogant contempt from the prosecuting attorney toward people in Britain who tried to show that the extradition was not justified: Guard
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BBC Panorama say that Tongo's new version of events was changed more than once. However, it's obvious that only the plea-bargain satements say that "R10,000" was received in the taxi, just before the hit took place. Tongo has never been asked to explain how he came to be talking openly about R10,000 much earlier in the day at Mbolombo's workplace: It makes sense that he subsequently elected "R10,000" to be 'the amount that the hit-man received': If anybody did happen to look at the Colosseum CCTV, they'd then assume that its "R10,000" was simply the hit money, somehow. Only the BBC team bothered to look at the Colosseum Hotel (or any other) CCTV and, as Tongo anticipated, nobody has queried the chronological discrepancy between when he is first recorded talking about R10,000, and when he says he received that amount from Shrien. Panorama did not observe that the Hotel CCTV reveals why Tongo begins, cleverly, to mention an amount of "R10,000" every time he talks about 'the payment of the hit-man'.
Panorama compiled a list of provable facts which cannot be reconciled with details in the plea bargain statements of the three accusers. The men also contradict each other on important detail and there is proof of deliberate lying. However, Panorama then decided to stir the "cloud of suspicion" by focusing on a hand gesture seen on CCTV from the Cape Grace Hotel: They stirred a media storm by insinuating that there was a connection between what the Cape accusers were saying and a hand-sign made by Shrien (raising both hands in a way that imitated pointing of guns.)
In 2014, Judge Jeanette Traverso was called a "racist Afrikaner" after she decided that the accusers had offered too many lies and impossibilities. Activists called for her to be investigated and the accusers' plea bargains were upheld regardless of the case being dropped (times.) The protection of the plea bargains serves to suggest that suburbs around Cape Town are 'still' safe places (as the city centre seemed to be to be during the 2010 Soccer World Cup.) The bargains have kept Shrien suspect in an 'unusual crime, instigated by a foreigner' and, as desired by Attorney da Grass, they have made it certain that the local men who took part physically in the hijack are tarnished forever as murderers, not as clumsy robbers. (Have Tongo and Qwabe ever realized that they'd be far less notorious now if they'd insisted that they be prosecuted for manslaughter arising from a robbery? Surely they can see that Mbolombo's idea to frame Shrien has probably worsened their lives long-term while it kept Mbolombo out of jail? Once da Grass had access to Mbolombo, he swept the other two along, making sure they became labelled as murder-conspirators.)
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¹ In American plea deals, suspects are offered lighter terms in exchange for information that brings their ‘organizers’ to court. There is no deterrent in law against the making of a false accusation through a plea deal. In South Africa, multiple plea deals can be offered to encourage suspects to reveal which of their accomplices had bigger roles in a crime, e.g. bit.ly/pleabarg.
None of the above can happen in the UK where plea deals are regarded as a compromise at best, providing motive for false testimony:
Click to see full screen
² In 2011, the Home Secretary expressed frustration with the Human Rights Act for putting conditions on her attempts to remove certain people from the UK, see bit.ly/MayVid - The "cat" content has since been shown to be a journalist's fabrication. Anyway, did May feel that, "the illegal immigrant, the illegal immigrant" is a bigger offender than a "violent drug dealer" or a "robber"? Later, she watched another Panorama program and swiftly deported 48,000 international students back to India: Indep, bit.ly/Maydepo and theHin. Financial compensation of such students by the UK government was still underway in 2023.
(A comedian on the show "8 Out Of 10 Cats" had recently drawn attention to her use of tabloid news stories as reference points in important speeches.) 
Click to see full screen
Additional note: The "abolition" of juries in South African courts was set up by the ruling National Party in 1969. They also encouraged the securing of convictions through plea deals that obtained nothing more than accusations. The ANC has since said that plea deals will become regulated one day (see News24. Substantial debate can be found in articles shown in a Google search for 'plea deals in south africa today'). For now, things remain fundamentally ‘adjusted’ in a way that can serve unfair (and political) agendas.
More recently, an ironic fact: President Zuma funnelled public money to the Gupta family for an Indian wedding costing millions. See what Zuma's like in 2022: mave.
While attempting to make a 'balanced' TV documentary, the BBC team did not pay sufficient attention to the solid information that they had already gathered. Instead, they gave substantial time to people doing verbal character assassination, attempting to back what the accusers said. The hard facts gathered by BBC Panorama all fit into an account which puts no suspicion onto Shrien Dewani. It's regrettable that Panorama did not process the solid evidence to completion, e.g. they didn't observe that Tongo's boast of having "R10,000" at lunchtime on the day of the crime ("for a helicopter trip") makes it extremely unlikely that, as claimed in his plea bargain statement, Shrien gave him that amount more than eight hours later, 'just before the hit took place'. Even if it's possible that Shrien could have put 'the hit fee' into a "pouch" behind the front passenger seat of the taxi, wouldn't Tongo have been better off abandoning him and Anni somewhere as soon as he had the money, avoiding involvement in a dangerous hijack/'hit'? The inconsistency between what's filed as Tongo's official statement and what can be heard on the Colosseum CCTV should have become a major point in the TV documentary, but instead the BBC stirred further suspicion of Shrien with a fragment of CCTV from the Cape Grace hotel. That CCTV showed Shrien pointing momentarily at Anni with both fore-fingers, a gesture which has sometimes been used by entertainers to 'connect' with members of their audience that they find attractive. Jeremy Vine said it was, "unfortunate, given what he's accused of", giving his audience the idea that it revealed murderous intention. Jeremy Vine also suggested that it was suspicious of Shrien to smile while talking on a phone to a friend in England, in the morning after the hijack. A straightforward explanation would be that Shrien was in denial, obviously worried that Anni was still missing but not willing to think that she might no longer be alive. Was Vine suggesting that the friend in England was yet another 'murder conspirator'? Focus was put onto gossip about Shrien's alleged struggle with his gender identity: A homo-prostitute was given lots of air-time to say that Shrien had confided in him that he didn't really want to marry Anni. Panorama even hired actors who created a bias against Shrien by role-playing repeatedly as down-to-Earth Cape locals who found him, 'puzzling'.
Introduction
In a new crime trend, dangerous men were watching arrivals at South Africa's O.R. Tambo International Airport and following potential victims home in cars, hoping to rob them as they arrived at the security gates of their houses.
In a taxi at Western Cape International on 12/11/2010, Zola Tongo was aware of new trends in crime. He made conversation with the Dewanis as he drove them to the Cape Grace Hotel. When they asked if he'd like to do more driving for them during their stay, he was eager to make some money.
In the next evening, he drove the Dewanis twenty-six miles toward a fine-dining restaurant on the far side of False Bay. However, before they got to '96 Winery Road', Shrien asked him to find an informal eatery instead, because he hadn't realized how far the restaurant was from Cape Town. They would have been late getting back if they'd had the full-course dinner. 
Click to see full screen.
On the way back from Strand at about 23:00, Tongo detoured into Gugulethu township again: He had done this on the way out, under the pretext of providing an 'authentic South African experience'. Two men held up the taxi at a junction which had a Stop sign. Shrien was forced out at gun-point by Mziwamadoda Qwabe, and Tongo got out voluntarily, but Anni was held captive and the minibus was driven away by Qwabe. Some streets later, Qwabe stopped the taxi and walked around to open the back door. He tried take Anni's bag from her, firing the gun. Anni had taken two expensive rings from her fingers to give to Qwabe, but she had clung to her handbag.
After talking with the lawyer who set up the case against Shrien, Tongo said that Shrien had threatened to kill him if he didn't have "a client.. taken off the scene" that night. Tongo said that his friend, Monde Mbolombo, overheard an angry phone call from Shrien in the first morning (implying that the phone was in loudspeaker mode), but the service provider's records show no morning call (says BBC Panorama.)
According to Panorama, Vodaphone's records show three calls between Shrien and Tongo: a 5½ minute call on the first evening (Friday) and two calls on the Saturday evening that, together, were less than 2 minutes long. Tongo doesn't mention the Friday evening call but he says that Shrien was "in an agitated state" during the first call on Saturday at 19:30. However, BBC Panorama showed that the Cape Grace Hotel CCTV recorded Shrien relaxing with Anni in the bar/lounge while making that very brief call. He and Anni were side-by-side, cheerfully enjoying a drink while waiting for Tongo, who was late.
It was Xolile Mngeni who said that Qwabe forced Shrien out of the taxi before driving it away. He said that Qwabe then stopped the taxi and walked around to open the rear passenger door. He fired the gun when he tried to take Anni's bag. Lab re-tests in 2014 (for primer residue on a glove) proved that Qwabe pulled the trigger: Dfacts. Mngeni had since died, condemned by Judge Henney as 'the shooter'.
The three accusers who took part in the 'plea and sentencing agreements':
Tongo: who knew that international visitors tend to have insurance and had been enjoying a top currency exchange rate for holidays in Cape Town. (After decades of monetary stability, the Z.A. Rand had devalued ten-fold since the 1990s.)
BBC Panorama say that Tongo's new version of events was changed more than once. However, it's obvious that only the plea-bargain satements say that "R10,000" was received in the taxi, just before the hit took place. Tongo has never been asked to explain how he came to be talking openly about R10,000 much earlier in the day at Mbolombo's workplace: It makes sense that he subsequently elected "R10,000" to be 'the amount that the hit-man received': If anybody did happen to look at the Colosseum CCTV, they'd then assume that its "R10,000" was simply the hit money, somehow.
Only the BBC team bothered to look at the Colosseum Hotel (or any other) CCTV and, as Tongo anticipated, nobody has queried the chronological discrepancy between when he is first recorded talking about R10,000, and when he says he received that amount from Shrien. Panorama did not observe that the Hotel CCTV reveals why Tongo begins, cleverly, to mention an amount of "R10,000" every time he talks about 'the payment of the hit-man'.
Panorama compiled a list of provable facts which cannot be reconciled with details in the plea bargain statements of the three accusers. The men also contradict each other on important detail and there is proof of deliberate lying. However, Panorama then decided to stir the "cloud of suspicion" by focusing on a hand gesture seen on CCTV from the Cape Grace Hotel: They stirred a media storm by insinuating that there was a connection between what the Cape accusers were saying and a hand-sign made by Shrien (raising both hands in a way that imitated pointing of guns.)
In 2014, Judge Jeanette Traverso was called a "racist Afrikaner" after she decided that the accusers had offered too many lies and impossibilities. Activists called for her to be investigated and the accusers' plea bargains were upheld regardless of the case being dropped (times.)
The protection of the plea bargains serves to suggest that suburbs around Cape Town are 'still' safe places (as the city centre seemed to be to be during the 2010 Soccer World Cup.) The bargains have kept Shrien suspect in an 'unusual crime, instigated by a foreigner' and, as desired by Attorney da Grass, they have made it certain that the local men who took part physically in the hijack are tarnished forever as murderers, not as clumsy robbers. (Have Tongo and Qwabe ever realized that they'd be far less notorious now if they'd insisted that they be prosecuted for manslaughter arising from a robbery? Surely they can see that Mbolombo's idea to frame Shrien has probably worsened their lives long-term while it kept Mbolombo out of jail? Once da Grass had access to Mbolombo, he swept the other two along, making sure they became labelled as murder-conspirators.)
____________________________________________________________
¹ In American plea deals, suspects are offered lighter terms in exchange for information that brings their ‘organizers’ to court. There is no deterrent in law against the making of a false accusation through a plea deal. In South Africa, multiple plea deals can be offered to encourage suspects to reveal which of their accomplices had bigger roles in a crime, e.g. bit.ly/pleabarg.
None of the above can happen in the UK where plea deals are regarded as a compromise at best, providing motive for false testimony:
¹ In American plea deals, suspects are offered lighter terms in exchange for information that brings their ‘organizers’ to court. There is no deterrent in law against the making of a false accusation through a plea deal. In South Africa, multiple plea deals can be offered to encourage suspects to reveal which of their accomplices had bigger roles in a crime, e.g. bit.ly/pleabarg.
None of the above can happen in the UK where plea deals are regarded as a compromise at best, providing motive for false testimony:
|
| Click to see full screen |
² In 2011, the Home Secretary expressed frustration with the Human Rights Act for putting conditions on her attempts to remove certain people from the UK, see bit.ly/MayVid - The "cat" content has since been shown to be a journalist's fabrication. Anyway, did May feel that, "the illegal immigrant, the illegal immigrant" is a bigger offender than a "violent drug dealer" or a "robber"? Later, she watched another Panorama program and swiftly deported 48,000 international students back to India: Indep, bit.ly/Maydepo and theHin. Financial compensation of such students by the UK government was still underway in 2023.
(A comedian on the show "8 Out Of 10 Cats" had recently drawn attention to her use of tabloid news stories as reference points in important speeches.)
 |
| Click to see full screen |
Additional note: The "abolition" of juries in South African courts was set up by the ruling National Party in 1969. They also encouraged the securing of convictions through plea deals that obtained nothing more than accusations. The ANC has since said that plea deals will become regulated one day (see News24. Substantial debate can be found in articles shown in a Google search for 'plea deals in south africa today'). For now, things remain fundamentally ‘adjusted’ in a way that can serve unfair (and political) agendas.
More recently, an ironic fact: President Zuma funnelled public money to the Gupta family for an Indian wedding costing millions. See what Zuma's like in 2022: mave.
While attempting to make a 'balanced' TV documentary, the BBC team did not pay sufficient attention to the solid information that they had already gathered. Instead, they gave substantial time to people doing verbal character assassination, attempting to back what the accusers said.
The hard facts gathered by BBC Panorama all fit into an account which puts no suspicion onto Shrien Dewani. It's regrettable that Panorama did not process the solid evidence to completion, e.g. they didn't observe that Tongo's boast of having "R10,000" at lunchtime on the day of the crime ("for a helicopter trip") makes it extremely unlikely that, as claimed in his plea bargain statement, Shrien gave him that amount more than eight hours later, 'just before the hit took place'. Even if it's possible that Shrien could have put 'the hit fee' into a "pouch" behind the front passenger seat of the taxi, wouldn't Tongo have been better off abandoning him and Anni somewhere as soon as he had the money, avoiding involvement in a dangerous hijack/'hit'?
The inconsistency between what's filed as Tongo's official statement and what can be heard on the Colosseum CCTV should have become a major point in the TV documentary, but instead the BBC stirred further suspicion of Shrien with a fragment of CCTV from the Cape Grace hotel. That CCTV showed Shrien pointing momentarily at Anni with both fore-fingers, a gesture which has sometimes been used by entertainers to 'connect' with members of their audience that they find attractive. Jeremy Vine said it was, "unfortunate, given what he's accused of", giving his audience the idea that it revealed murderous intention.
Jeremy Vine also suggested that it was suspicious of Shrien to smile while talking on a phone to a friend in England, in the morning after the hijack. A straightforward explanation would be that Shrien was in denial, obviously worried that Anni was still missing but not willing to think that she might no longer be alive. Was Vine suggesting that the friend in England was yet another 'murder conspirator'?
Focus was put onto gossip about Shrien's alleged struggle with his gender identity: A homo-prostitute was given lots of air-time to say that Shrien had confided in him that he didn't really want to marry Anni. Panorama even hired actors who created a bias against Shrien by role-playing repeatedly as down-to-Earth Cape locals who found him, 'puzzling'.
Introduction
In a new crime trend, dangerous men were watching arrivals at South Africa's O.R. Tambo International Airport and following potential victims home in cars, hoping to rob them as they arrived at the security gates of their houses.
In a taxi at Western Cape International on 12/11/2010, Zola Tongo was aware of new trends in crime. He made conversation with the Dewanis as he drove them to the Cape Grace Hotel. When they asked if he'd like to do more driving for them during their stay, he was eager to make some money.
In the next evening, he drove the Dewanis twenty-six miles toward a fine-dining restaurant on the far side of False Bay. However, before they got to '96 Winery Road', Shrien asked him to find an informal eatery instead, because he hadn't realized how far the restaurant was from Cape Town. They would have been late getting back if they'd had the full-course dinner.
 |
| Click to see full screen. |
On the way back from Strand at about 23:00, Tongo detoured into Gugulethu township again: He had done this on the way out, under the pretext of providing an 'authentic South African experience'. Two men held up the taxi at a junction which had a Stop sign. Shrien was forced out at gun-point by Mziwamadoda Qwabe, and Tongo got out voluntarily, but Anni was held captive and the minibus was driven away by Qwabe. Some streets later, Qwabe stopped the taxi and walked around to open the back door. He tried take Anni's bag from her, firing the gun. Anni had taken two expensive rings from her fingers to give to Qwabe, but she had clung to her handbag.
After talking with the lawyer who set up the case against Shrien, Tongo said that Shrien had threatened to kill him if he didn't have "a client.. taken off the scene" that night. Tongo said that his friend, Monde Mbolombo, overheard an angry phone call from Shrien in the first morning (implying that the phone was in loudspeaker mode), but the service provider's records show no morning call (says BBC Panorama.)
According to Panorama, Vodaphone's records show three calls between Shrien and Tongo: a 5½ minute call on the first evening (Friday) and two calls on the Saturday evening that, together, were less than 2 minutes long. Tongo doesn't mention the Friday evening call but he says that Shrien was "in an agitated state" during the first call on Saturday at 19:30. However, BBC Panorama showed that the Cape Grace Hotel CCTV recorded Shrien relaxing with Anni in the bar/lounge while making that very brief call. He and Anni were side-by-side, cheerfully enjoying a drink while waiting for Tongo, who was late.
It was Xolile Mngeni who said that Qwabe forced Shrien out of the taxi before driving it away. He said that Qwabe then stopped the taxi and walked around to open the rear passenger door. He fired the gun when he tried to take Anni's bag. Lab re-tests in 2014 (for primer residue on a glove) proved that Qwabe pulled the trigger: Dfacts. Mngeni had since died, condemned by Judge Henney as 'the shooter'.
The three accusers who took part in the 'plea and sentencing agreements':
| |
| Tongo: who knew that international visitors tend to have insurance and had been enjoying a top currency exchange rate for holidays in Cape Town. (After decades of monetary stability, the Z.A. Rand had devalued ten-fold since the 1990s.) |
 | ||||||
| Mbolombo: who was Tongo's associate and was a receptionist at the Colosseum Hotel. He knew a desperate man on the Cape Flats. |
Qwabe: the desperate man who had recently turned to violent crime, possessed
a handgun, and used yellow kitchen gloves while handling the gun.
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| Qwabe: the desperate man who had recently turned to violent crime, possessed a handgun, and used yellow kitchen gloves while handling the gun. |
The unrehearsed witness to Shrien's innocence, who rejected a plea bargain:
 |
| Xolile Mngeni: refused to change his statement in which there is no mention of a plan to do bodily harm, a gunshot was fired in a tussle, and Shrien was co-victim with Anni. Mngeni was terminally ill: Indep. |
The three accusers and sixteen 'witnesses' (none of whom were at the crime scene) were not credible to Judge Traverso in 2014: IOL (no longer online, see Guard.) In 2010, Judge Henney had no grounds for supporting the accusers (over Mngeni and over Shrien Dewani), but they continue to enjoy their plea bargains today. It's possible that Tongo will serve only 9 years, not 25. (The bargain reduced it to 18: bristo.) Mbolombo has remained free from the start. He bragged in Judge Traverso's court that he had lied in Henney's court to make Mngeni seem most guilty: Guardi and Guardia. It is believed that Tongo initially made a statement to the police (as did Mngeni and Qwabe) and, like them, he did not state that Shrien Dewani had paid him to have Anni killed. Suspiciously, such statement was not obtainable later for court: News24. - This article also is no longer online but its url gives some substantiation: www.news24.com/News24/Tongo-probed-on-mystery-statement-20141029
Opponents of Judge Traverso's ruling have prevented any correction of the verdicts cast by Robert Henney. In November 2015, the Director of Public Prosecutions showed contempt for Traverso by re-affirming Mbolombo's indemnity: enca/DPP (no longer online but see the Wiki page pasted below.)
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| Click to see full screen |
While talking with Mbolombo about pre-arranged hijack, attorney Willem Da Grass knew that he could ensnare Shrien with a trick from Apartheid days. Decades ago, steps were taken by the National Party so that political opponents could be imprisoned without any neglect of 'due process': Juries were "abolished" and plea deals could be used to accumulate accusations against an individual. (Usually, terrified 'suspects' would plead guilty to the lesser accusations, rather than risk being sentenced for the gravest charges.)
Plea deals that compelled three accusers to make the same accusation did manage to put Shrien under grave suspicion in the public eye. BBC Panorama then suggested that a few seconds of CCTV they'd found, admittedly, 'did make him look guilty' (and some gossip about his past was procured from a male homo-prostitute in the UK, which further polarized opinion.)
The first judge: Robert Henney.
While talking with Mbolombo about pre-arranged hijack, attorney Willem Da Grass knew that he could ensnare Shrien with a trick from Apartheid days. Decades ago, steps were taken by the National Party so that political opponents could be imprisoned without any neglect of 'due process': Juries were "abolished" and plea deals could be used to accumulate accusations against an individual. (Usually, terrified 'suspects' would plead guilty to the lesser accusations, rather than risk being sentenced for the gravest charges.)
Plea deals that compelled three accusers to make the same accusation did manage to put Shrien under grave suspicion in the public eye. BBC Panorama then suggested that a few seconds of CCTV they'd found, admittedly, 'did make him look guilty' (and some gossip about his past was procured from a male homo-prostitute in the UK, which further polarized opinion.)
Plea deals that compelled three accusers to make the same accusation did manage to put Shrien under grave suspicion in the public eye. BBC Panorama then suggested that a few seconds of CCTV they'd found, admittedly, 'did make him look guilty' (and some gossip about his past was procured from a male homo-prostitute in the UK, which further polarized opinion.)
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| The first judge: Robert Henney. |
October 2016: Once again, a theft of personal jewellery at gunpoint has motivated a conspiracy story in which a victim is suggested to be the crime's instigator: thesun.
How quickly it was forgotten that the Dewanis were robbed for their jewellery. Anni had a ring on that was worth £25k. When Qwabe was wrestling for her bag, had he decided that there might have been more jewellery in it, e.g. which would have been worn during the wedding ceremony in India? (There have been airport customs officials on TV who tell of substantial gold being carried by people for attending traditional Indian weddings.) Qwabe was from a background of poverty and he might not have seen that the two rings Anni offered him were so valuable. Even if he did see their value, he would have wanted more items, in order to make a worthwhile sale of goods later. (It wasn't likely he'd find a 'high-end' crooked jewellery dealer in Gugulethu to pay a substantial price for the two rings.)
The prosecution of Shrien was scrapped only because judge Traverso would not be swayed by political pressure. Mngeni was not so lucky: Even if he'd wanted to, Judge Henney wouldn't defy a lynch mob that contained officials of the regime that employed him: Teleg, Timeslive. 
How quickly it was forgotten that the Dewanis were robbed for their jewellery. Anni had a ring on that was worth £25k. When Qwabe was wrestling for her bag, had he decided that there might have been more jewellery in it, e.g. which would have been worn during the wedding ceremony in India? (There have been airport customs officials on TV who tell of substantial gold being carried by people for attending traditional Indian weddings.) Qwabe was from a background of poverty and he might not have seen that the two rings Anni offered him were so valuable. Even if he did see their value, he would have wanted more items, in order to make a worthwhile sale of goods later. (It wasn't likely he'd find a 'high-end' crooked jewellery dealer in Gugulethu to pay a substantial price for the two rings.)
The prosecution of Shrien was scrapped only because judge Traverso would not be swayed by political pressure. Mngeni was not so lucky: Even if he'd wanted to, Judge Henney wouldn't defy a lynch mob that contained officials of the regime that employed him: Teleg, Timeslive.
The prosecution of Shrien was scrapped only because judge Traverso would not be swayed by political pressure. Mngeni was not so lucky: Even if he'd wanted to, Judge Henney wouldn't defy a lynch mob that contained officials of the regime that employed him: Teleg, Timeslive.
Was it simply arraignment by Facebook petition? The petitioners lived at least 8,000 miles from the crime scene.
"September 21, 2011 – A petition organised by Mrs Dewani's family which calls on Home Secretary Theresa May to extradite Shrien Dewani is handed to the Home Office. The document has more than 11,000 signatures. September 26, 2011 – The Home Secretary approves the extradition of Dewani." (telegraph) BBC Panorama had stepped aside from their effective journalism to insinuate a dark interpretation of Dewani's hand-sign, to make him seem suspicious. Mrs May was unlikely to buck the trend, study the details for herself, and oppose Judge Riddle.
Was it simply arraignment by Facebook petition? The petitioners lived at least 8,000 miles from the crime scene.
"September 21, 2011 – A petition organised by Mrs Dewani's family which calls on Home Secretary Theresa May to extradite Shrien Dewani is handed to the Home Office. The document has more than 11,000 signatures.
September 26, 2011 – The Home Secretary approves the extradition of Dewani." (telegraph)
BBC Panorama had stepped aside from their effective journalism to insinuate a dark interpretation of Dewani's hand-sign, to make him seem suspicious. Mrs May was unlikely to buck the trend, study the details for herself, and oppose Judge Riddle.
Summary of Tongo's original scheme.
After dropping the Dewanis at their hotel on 12 November 2010, Tongo visited Mbolombo at his hotel workplace and told him about the fine clothes and jewellery that they had been wearing in his taxi. Mbolombo suggested a way to have the couple mugged with the help of a crime contact, Qwabe. Qwabe would be ready with a gun and an accomplice to hold up the taxi at night. However, Tongo wanted some cash straight away: It would take time for Qwabe to sell the jewellery, and he couldn't be sure there would be a proper sharing of the takings. (He'd never met Qwabe before, who was from the Cape Flats townships where there have been high crime rates.)
Then, Tongo realized that the 'hijack' idea could make it easy to steal cash that Shrien had entrusted to him for arranging a helicopter tour. After the hijack was done, he would tell Shrien that the "R10,000" had been taken from a glove compartment in his taxi by the hijackers!
It might seem foolish of Shrien to have trusted Tongo with R10,000 on his first morning in Cape Town, but Tongo had made every effort to seem like a helpful man with local knowledge. Shrien perhaps thought that Tongo would help make their honeymoon more private and interesting. R10,000 was worth £902 at that time: a suitable amount for a coastal helicopter tour that would include over-night stop/s at hotel/s along the Garden Route. (Such tours were a fairly new feature in the South African travel industry.) Also, the money could have given Tongo a sense that he was going to do well by attaching himself to the Dewanis, so Shrien wouldn't have to worry about hiring any other taxis.
It was simply bad luck that Shrien walked into Tongo's life when he was turning criminal. On the other hand, Tongo wants us to believe that he turned from an honest family life to arranging a murder at the drop of a hat, only minutes after one was suggested to him. Not only that, but his friend who had a good hotel job was also suddenly ready to do murderous crime?
The truth is that Tongo and Mbolombo were already interested in theft and robbery. When Shrien got into Tongo's taxi, Tongo saw opportunity, e.g. Shrien was shy of using a free hotel shuttle bus (on which there might be racists?) Neither Tongo nor Mbolombo planned to have a homicide to account for. That was Qwabe's doing.
Tongo was arrested seven days after the fateful night. Soon he was asked to change the statement he'd made to police, to match the one one settled on by Mbolombo, Qwabe and attorney Da Grass. Tongo still had Shrien's helicopter money which he'd bragged about at the Colosseum Hotel: He realized that his original 'glove compartment' idea (the one he'd planned to tell Shrien, i.e. that the hijackers had stolen the helicopter money from the glove compartment) could become very useful now with some adjustment to detail: People might believe that Shrien had paid for a hit-man at night by leaving money in the "pouch" behind the front passenger seat of the taxi! (Shrien and Anni both rode in the back of the taxi, Tongo behaved like a chauffeur. This can be seen in the Panorama documentary: Panor'13.*) If the Police did begin to see Shrien as a murder suspect, they wouldn't be interested if he complained of missing helicopter money. That would "simply vanish" (Jeremy Vine's choice of words.) *The BBC once blocked the online duplicate of the Panorama documentary as copyright infringement. None of its factual content conflicts with this blog.
William da Grass wanted to see substantial verdicts for the men who were directly involved in yet another serious crime on a road in South Africa. Having three men who agreed to say that Shrien solicited a murder might give leverage for having him extradited back to South Africa, and then the hijackers would go down for 'murder', not just for 'armed robbery'.
There was an opinion that Cape Town's reputation was at stake, therefore there was a need to punish that "monkey" telegraph. Certain members of the SA Police Service would shun any new discoveries that might expose the falsity in the plea bargains. Top men wanted the most serious verdict: "murderers" for the hijackers, even if the sentences were shortened by a plea bargain. It didn't matter to them if the crime had actually been a robbery during which a manslaughter occurred, or that Dewani was innocent.
From his prison cell, Tongo saw that his new 'hit' story was very popular with officials and in the media. It was even gaining a following overseas. In a final revision (IoL/T) he quotes a bigger cash total that was 'paid for the hit' but he still says that "the hit-man" received R10,000 at night in the taxi.* The fictional, night-time "R10,000" will be mentioned as often as possible by all three accusers. - If people ever hear about the actual R10,000 that was bragged about much earlier in the day-time at the Colosseum Hotel, that will then seem only to 'confirm the general story'.**
After dropping the Dewanis at their hotel on 12 November 2010, Tongo visited Mbolombo at his hotel workplace and told him about the fine clothes and jewellery that they had been wearing in his taxi. Mbolombo suggested a way to have the couple mugged with the help of a crime contact, Qwabe. Qwabe would be ready with a gun and an accomplice to hold up the taxi at night.
However, Tongo wanted some cash straight away: It would take time for Qwabe to sell the jewellery, and he couldn't be sure there would be a proper sharing of the takings. (He'd never met Qwabe before, who was from the Cape Flats townships where there have been high crime rates.)
Then, Tongo realized that the 'hijack' idea could make it easy to steal cash that Shrien had entrusted to him for arranging a helicopter tour. After the hijack was done, he would tell Shrien that the "R10,000" had been taken from a glove compartment in his taxi by the hijackers!
Then, Tongo realized that the 'hijack' idea could make it easy to steal cash that Shrien had entrusted to him for arranging a helicopter tour. After the hijack was done, he would tell Shrien that the "R10,000" had been taken from a glove compartment in his taxi by the hijackers!
It might seem foolish of Shrien to have trusted Tongo with R10,000 on his first morning in Cape Town, but Tongo had made every effort to seem like a helpful man with local knowledge. Shrien perhaps thought that Tongo would help make their honeymoon more private and interesting. R10,000 was worth £902 at that time: a suitable amount for a coastal helicopter tour that would include over-night stop/s at hotel/s along the Garden Route. (Such tours were a fairly new feature in the South African travel industry.) Also, the money could have given Tongo a sense that he was going to do well by attaching himself to the Dewanis, so Shrien wouldn't have to worry about hiring any other taxis.
It was simply bad luck that Shrien walked into Tongo's life when he was turning criminal. On the other hand, Tongo wants us to believe that he turned from an honest family life to arranging a murder at the drop of a hat, only minutes after one was suggested to him. Not only that, but his friend who had a good hotel job was also suddenly ready to do murderous crime?
The truth is that Tongo and Mbolombo were already interested in theft and robbery. When Shrien got into Tongo's taxi, Tongo saw opportunity, e.g. Shrien was shy of using a free hotel shuttle bus (on which there might be racists?) Neither Tongo nor Mbolombo planned to have a homicide to account for. That was Qwabe's doing.
Tongo was arrested seven days after the fateful night. Soon he was asked to change the statement he'd made to police, to match the one one settled on by Mbolombo, Qwabe and attorney Da Grass. Tongo still had Shrien's helicopter money which he'd bragged about at the Colosseum Hotel: He realized that his original 'glove compartment' idea (the one he'd planned to tell Shrien, i.e. that the hijackers had stolen the helicopter money from the glove compartment) could become very useful now with some adjustment to detail: People might believe that Shrien had paid for a hit-man at night by leaving money in the "pouch" behind the front passenger seat of the taxi! (Shrien and Anni both rode in the back of the taxi, Tongo behaved like a chauffeur. This can be seen in the Panorama documentary: Panor'13.*) If the Police did begin to see Shrien as a murder suspect, they wouldn't be interested if he complained of missing helicopter money. That would "simply vanish" (Jeremy Vine's choice of words.) *The BBC once blocked the online duplicate of the Panorama documentary as copyright infringement. None of its factual content conflicts with this blog.
William da Grass wanted to see substantial verdicts for the men who were directly involved in yet another serious crime on a road in South Africa. Having three men who agreed to say that Shrien solicited a murder might give leverage for having him extradited back to South Africa, and then the hijackers would go down for 'murder', not just for 'armed robbery'.
There was an opinion that Cape Town's reputation was at stake, therefore there was a need to punish that "monkey" telegraph. Certain members of the SA Police Service would shun any new discoveries that might expose the falsity in the plea bargains. Top men wanted the most serious verdict: "murderers" for the hijackers, even if the sentences were shortened by a plea bargain. It didn't matter to them if the crime had actually been a robbery during which a manslaughter occurred, or that Dewani was innocent.
From his prison cell, Tongo saw that his new 'hit' story was very popular with officials and in the media. It was even gaining a following overseas. In a final revision (IoL/T) he quotes a bigger cash total that was 'paid for the hit' but he still says that "the hit-man" received R10,000 at night in the taxi.*
The fictional, night-time "R10,000" will be mentioned as often as possible by all three accusers. - If people ever hear about the actual R10,000 that was bragged about much earlier in the day-time at the Colosseum Hotel, that will then seem only to 'confirm the general story'.**
* Mbolombo, Tongo and Qwabe have a strong need to say that 'payment for the hit' was received at night in the taxi: If Tongo says that the "R10,000!" that he had at lunch-time was actually 'the hit money', people will wonder why he didn't just put it in his pocket and disappear. Shrien could hardly have stayed in South Africa and pursued him if he stole, 'hit money'.
**Jeremy Vine of BBC Panorama was the first to realize that CCTV footage from the Colosseum Hotel Reception: 1) confirms Shrien's statement that he'd provided R10,000 for arrangement of a helicopter tour. 2) shows that Tongo and Mbolombo were already planning to steal it before their 'hijack' was done that night. However, Mr Vine didn't see what Tongo's game has been since he was briefed by Willem da Grass after his arrest: Tongo had guessed that the CCTV would probably never be played back but, just in case, he decided to speak in ways that could protect him if it did: He invents an amount of R10,000 'for the hit-man' that was 'received at night'. (He makes sure he never mentions the money spoken about in the day-time CCTV footage.) He, Qwabe and Mbolombo will blur things with shifting accounts and inconsistent details, but they'll each mention "R10,000". In the rush to condemn an evil "monkey" (telegraph), people won't be bothered if they next hear that Tongo had received "R10,000" much earlier in the day. It would always 'obviously' be, 'the hit-man's payment'.
The plea bargaining was a spurious imitation of American plea bargaining.
Attorney da Grass saw to it that 'plea and sentencing agreements' would enjoin three accusers against one tourist and against the fourth member of their gang (who would 'take the fall' by becoming 'the shooter'.) The plea bargains were given primary importance because they would seem to give substance for requesting the extradition of Shrien to South Africa.
Regarding plea bargains in Britain: "This tactic is prohibited in some countries - for example in the United Kingdom the prosecutor's code states:.." (Wikipedia.) However, our officials agreed to pursue Shrien's extradition as soon as the South Africans said that they had agreed plea deals with three of the four suspects. (An account of the meeting of officials was in a web news article.) Click to see full screen
Plea bargains normally are a way to get a criminal to accept a reduced level of punishment in return for making a prosecutor's task less difficult: "Admit that you did something so that we can at least get you off the streets for a while". Often, a deal rewards a criminal for information that leads to the arraignment and prosecution of a third party. Such plea bargains that incriminate a third party have been used in the US to catch career criminals who were part of organized crime. In other words, 'snitching' was encouraged through plea bargains. Of course, plea deals might generate false incriminations because there is an agreement with people who might do anything to reduce their prison terms.
False incrimination is more likely to occur in a South African court that allows the flimsiest of plea bargains and has no jury trials. With no jury, there is nobody to oppose a seasoned prosecutor who has rehearsed accusers at his disposal. Attorney Da Grass had such accusers and they provided no new evidence, only finger-pointing. Obviously, the opening of a new case meant that Da Grass could extend his earnings further through Dewani's loss.
Regarding plea bargains in Britain: "This tactic is prohibited in some countries - for example in the United Kingdom the prosecutor's code states:.." (Wikipedia.) However, our officials agreed to pursue Shrien's extradition as soon as the South Africans said that they had agreed plea deals with three of the four suspects. (An account of the meeting of officials was in a web news article.)
Click to see full screen
Plea bargains normally are a way to get a criminal to accept a reduced level of punishment in return for making a prosecutor's task less difficult: "Admit that you did something so that we can at least get you off the streets for a while". Often, a deal rewards a criminal for information that leads to the arraignment and prosecution of a third party. Such plea bargains that incriminate a third party have been used in the US to catch career criminals who were part of organized crime. In other words, 'snitching' was encouraged through plea bargains. Of course, plea deals might generate false incriminations because there is an agreement with people who might do anything to reduce their prison terms.
False incrimination is more likely to occur in a South African court that allows the flimsiest of plea bargains and has no jury trials. With no jury, there is nobody to oppose a seasoned prosecutor who has rehearsed accusers at his disposal. Attorney Da Grass had such accusers and they provided no new evidence, only finger-pointing. Obviously, the opening of a new case meant that Da Grass could extend his earnings further through Dewani's loss.
Taking part in a plea bargain usually requires that the suspect agree to being prosecuted for a different category of crime than he/she might otherwise admit to (usually, one that is less serious.) A criminal who was guilty of robbery-with-a-fatal-outcome wouldn't normally agree to being accused of participation in a contract-to-kill, disguised as a robbery. Tongo would not have let the charges be thus changed if he hadn't been persuaded by da Grass that he'd be better off for doing so, because of the reduced sentence being offered. It would be worth knowing what sentence Tongo could have received for a manslaughter-related charge (not premeditated.) Did the aggressive attorney give him a chance to query the options? It seems likely that da Grass simply wanted these men to be convicted on the very grave charge that Mbolombo had dreamed up. He was willing to let Mbolombo go sentence-free, and to let Dewani be falsely accused, in order to see that the three road criminals got 'premeditated murder' on their records. An example was to be made in a country where crime was rife on the roads.
Taking part in a plea bargain usually requires that the suspect agree to being prosecuted for a different category of crime than he/she might otherwise admit to (usually, one that is less serious.) A criminal who was guilty of robbery-with-a-fatal-outcome wouldn't normally agree to being accused of participation in a contract-to-kill, disguised as a robbery. Tongo would not have let the charges be thus changed if he hadn't been persuaded by da Grass that he'd be better off for doing so, because of the reduced sentence being offered. It would be worth knowing what sentence Tongo could have received for a manslaughter-related charge (not premeditated.) Did the aggressive attorney give him a chance to query the options? It seems likely that da Grass simply wanted these men to be convicted on the very grave charge that Mbolombo had dreamed up. He was willing to let Mbolombo go sentence-free, and to let Dewani be falsely accused, in order to see that the three road criminals got 'premeditated murder' on their records. An example was to be made in a country where crime was rife on the roads.
There has been a report that plea bargaining in South Africa might, one day, become regulated: news24.
There was nothing normal about filing a case against Shrien: There is a copy online of the charges brought against Shrien: scribd. These charges would not have been sustainable without the 'plea and sentencing agreements', about which the following should be noted:
1) Plea bargains can help bring people to court who have previously escaped justice, but there was no prior suspicion of any crime ever being committed by Shrien. His work was in the care industry.
2) The three Capetonians took no risk by accusing their victim (except that they were accusing themselves of conspiracy to murder.) They 'could only gain' something (in the short-term) by setting up the case. Attorney da Grass obviously would gain through the fees received for services and by getting his name into the newspapers as a top lawyer.
3) Mbolombo, probably the originator of the idea to say that Shrien wanted Anni killed, is completely shielded. He subsequently said in Judge Traverso's court that he had lied under oath about Mngeni so that he'd be given a grievous verdict in Henney's Court: Guard. He is saying now that Mngeni is innocent of anything to do with murder, but his plea bargain 'protects him' from being taken seriously. Nobody will arrest him in connection with this homicide, whatever he says.
The Colosseum Hotel CCTV is just one of the solid sources of information that were excluded from the Dewani case in order to safeguard the plea bargains. That CCTV record disproves the key accusation on which the case was built. It confirms that Shrien gave money to Tongo in the daytime, not 'in Gugulethu at night', for a helicopter tour, not for a "hit-man".
Shrien's hand-gesture on the Cape Grace Hotel CCTV was not suspicious.
It was BBC Panorama who uncovered the Colosseum Hotel CCTV. Its content nullifies the statement made by Tongo under pressure from William da Grass. Instead of pressing home their evidence that the most important detail in Tongo's statement is a lie (i.e. that Shrien 'paid him for a hit, paid him in the taxi at night'), Panorama presented other material in a way that would encourage suspicion of Shrien. They showed CCTV of Shrien: 1) pointing at Anni, and 2) smiling while talking to a friend on the phone in England. It was implied that Shrien's pointing at Anni with both forefingers revealed a plot to have her shot with a gun, but the same two-handed gesture was often made by a World-champion figure skater in the 1990's, as a flirtation with female fans. In this case, it was simply a private flirtation between newlyweds at night as they approached the door of their hotel room.
A smile on Shrien's face while talking on his mobile phone after the 'hijack' had taken place, was implied to reveal that he was unconcerned about Anni. Not mentioned: Shrien was assuming she'd still be alive and he was probably hearing a familiar voice (on the phone) for the first time in a while. If anything, Panorama threw more suspicion onto Shrien than Attorney da Grass had managed to do: Millions saw newspaper copies of the hand gesture and 'suspicious' smile. Was this a way to 'balance' the story, or simply a way to spice it up for the television audience?
After four years in detention, Shrien was sent back to face the stitch-up and endure a breach of his British rights: South Africa still has no jury in a trial, because jury trials were "abolished" to make apartheid easier to administer.
The following was written in 2010: "The only piece of evidence that is not in dispute at this point is that Anni, wearing an elegant, black cocktail dress, was shot in the neck": see daimav.
In 2014, Francois van Zyl, defending Dewani, had opportunities to cross-examine Tongo about "mistakes" in the testimony which he'd given in 2010: News24a. Tongo said that he'd had time to remember details while in jail: "certain facts had come back to him now that he was calmer, four years later". However, Tongo provided nothing new except that he was quick, in the next day's hearing, to see where he might gain a fresh advantage by saying, "I do not remember": See News24, discussed below.
There has been a report that plea bargaining in South Africa might, one day, become regulated: news24.
There was nothing normal about filing a case against Shrien:
There is a copy online of the charges brought against Shrien: scribd. These charges would not have been sustainable without the 'plea and sentencing agreements', about which the following should be noted:
1) Plea bargains can help bring people to court who have previously escaped justice, but there was no prior suspicion of any crime ever being committed by Shrien. His work was in the care industry.
2) The three Capetonians took no risk by accusing their victim (except that they were accusing themselves of conspiracy to murder.) They 'could only gain' something (in the short-term) by setting up the case. Attorney da Grass obviously would gain through the fees received for services and by getting his name into the newspapers as a top lawyer.
3) Mbolombo, probably the originator of the idea to say that Shrien wanted Anni killed, is completely shielded. He subsequently said in Judge Traverso's court that he had lied under oath about Mngeni so that he'd be given a grievous verdict in Henney's Court: Guard. He is saying now that Mngeni is innocent of anything to do with murder, but his plea bargain 'protects him' from being taken seriously. Nobody will arrest him in connection with this homicide, whatever he says.
Shrien's hand-gesture on the Cape Grace Hotel CCTV was not suspicious.
It was BBC Panorama who uncovered the Colosseum Hotel CCTV. Its content nullifies the statement made by Tongo under pressure from William da Grass.
2) The three Capetonians took no risk by accusing their victim (except that they were accusing themselves of conspiracy to murder.) They 'could only gain' something (in the short-term) by setting up the case. Attorney da Grass obviously would gain through the fees received for services and by getting his name into the newspapers as a top lawyer.
3) Mbolombo, probably the originator of the idea to say that Shrien wanted Anni killed, is completely shielded. He subsequently said in Judge Traverso's court that he had lied under oath about Mngeni so that he'd be given a grievous verdict in Henney's Court: Guard. He is saying now that Mngeni is innocent of anything to do with murder, but his plea bargain 'protects him' from being taken seriously. Nobody will arrest him in connection with this homicide, whatever he says.
The Colosseum Hotel CCTV is just one of the solid sources of information that were excluded from the Dewani case in order to safeguard the plea bargains. That CCTV record disproves the key accusation on which the case was built. It confirms that Shrien gave money to Tongo in the daytime, not 'in Gugulethu at night', for a helicopter tour, not for a "hit-man".
Shrien's hand-gesture on the Cape Grace Hotel CCTV was not suspicious.
It was BBC Panorama who uncovered the Colosseum Hotel CCTV. Its content nullifies the statement made by Tongo under pressure from William da Grass.
Instead of pressing home their evidence that the most important detail in Tongo's statement is a lie (i.e. that Shrien 'paid him for a hit, paid him in the taxi at night'), Panorama presented other material in a way that would encourage suspicion of Shrien. They showed CCTV of Shrien: 1) pointing at Anni, and 2) smiling while talking to a friend on the phone in England. It was implied that Shrien's pointing at Anni with both forefingers revealed a plot to have her shot with a gun, but the same two-handed gesture was often made by a World-champion figure skater in the 1990's, as a flirtation with female fans. In this case, it was simply a private flirtation between newlyweds at night as they approached the door of their hotel room.
A smile on Shrien's face while talking on his mobile phone after the 'hijack' had taken place, was implied to reveal that he was unconcerned about Anni. Not mentioned: Shrien was assuming she'd still be alive and he was probably hearing a familiar voice (on the phone) for the first time in a while.
A smile on Shrien's face while talking on his mobile phone after the 'hijack' had taken place, was implied to reveal that he was unconcerned about Anni. Not mentioned: Shrien was assuming she'd still be alive and he was probably hearing a familiar voice (on the phone) for the first time in a while.
If anything, Panorama threw more suspicion onto Shrien than Attorney da Grass had managed to do: Millions saw newspaper copies of the hand gesture and 'suspicious' smile. Was this a way to 'balance' the story, or simply a way to spice it up for the television audience?
After four years in detention, Shrien was sent back to face the stitch-up and endure a breach of his British rights: South Africa still has no jury in a trial, because jury trials were "abolished" to make apartheid easier to administer.
The following was written in 2010: "The only piece of evidence that is not in dispute at this point is that Anni, wearing an elegant, black cocktail dress, was shot in the neck": see daimav.
In 2014, Francois van Zyl, defending Dewani, had opportunities to cross-examine Tongo about "mistakes" in the testimony which he'd given in 2010: News24a. Tongo said that he'd had time to remember details while in jail: "certain facts had come back to him now that he was calmer, four years later". However, Tongo provided nothing new except that he was quick, in the next day's hearing, to see where he might gain a fresh advantage by saying, "I do not remember": See News24, discussed below.
The prosecuting attorney agreed to get immunity for Mbolombo before he ever spoke to Tongo.
Mngeni was arrested 3 days after the homicide (on 16/11/2010.) In video, he can be seen giving his statement to police (because he couldn't write) and he does not incriminate Shrien: Panor. Qwabe was arrested 5 days after the homicide (on 18/11/2010.) Mbolombo was arrested on day 6, and Tongo was arrested last (on 20/11/2010.) It seems certain that it was Mbolombo who told Attorney da Grass that there had been a contract-to-kill. Therefore, a case against Shrien was agreed before da Grass could to talk to Tongo. It would be helpful to know what was in the statement that Tongo had made at the police station on 20/11/2010, before the lawyer was able to interview him. There had been ample opportunity since the night of 13/11/2010 for phone calls between Mbolombo and Tongo to occur. Obviously, it was a problem for Mbolombo if Tongo stated truthfully that the crime had been an organized robbery which turned deadly: Mbolombo would be perceived as the kingpin who'd provided the two accomplices, one with a gun. Consequently, Mbolombo was keenest to tell the world that Shrien was the instigator. Tongo could see that it might help him to do as Mbolombo suggested, but he must have felt some reluctance to pretend that he'd played a role in a murder-conspiracy? During one of the hearings against Dewani in 2014, Tongo found a way to adjust his testimony so that it became a 'mystery' whether or not he'd made a statement to police (before he could have been offered a plea deal by a lawyer: News24.) He had already said in court that he did make such a statement on 20/11/2010, and that there was no mention of a plea bargain when he did this. The statement was also referred to by him when he suggested that "mistakes" were put into it by police. This is reported in News24a. See an excerpt pasted below:
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During the cross-examination by Shrien's defence lawyer, van Zyl, Tongo says that he doesn't remember making a second statement, "as per the conditions of the plea bargain he eventually entered into". Van Zyl says that the only statement he can see (which he'd received from the authorities), with Tongo's signature on it, is dated 26 November 2010. He tries to make Tongo confirm that his first statement was made on the day of his arrest, the 20th. Tongo realizes that the original paperwork has probably been 'misplaced' now, and it will help him if he says that he only remembers making one statement: "There is no other such statement that I can remember". (He wants us deduce that the 26 November statement, which was written to satisfy the plea bargain, must actually be the only one he ever made.) He has, for the first time, made a 'mystery' of the 20 November statement which he'd previously admitted to making. Nobody can now ask him what it contained or if he changed his story on 26 November when asked for a statement, "as per conditions of the plea bargain". Surely, the police would have proceeded with Tongo as they did with Mngeni and Qwabe, taking statements on the day of arrest. They wouldn't wait six days and take a statement from Tongo only after Da Grass had visited him in jail. (When making the first statement to police on 20/11/2010, Tongo would not have been as eager as Mbolombo was to accuse Shrien, because that would cast a grim light on himself.)
Da Grass had obviously acted as the middle man who made sure that Qwabe and Mbolombo created stories that would seem consistent. It seems that Qwabe's plea bargain statement differed substantially from his original one at the police station. His lawyer argued that policemen had forced him initially to sign a document that they had written for him (Qwabe was unlikely to be a good writer): Guard or see the poster below. The lawyer appears to be claiming that the police frightened Qwabe into signing a document in which he does not state that there was a contract-to-kill. 
The lawyer appears to be claiming that the police frightened Qwabe into signing a document in which he says that Anni was shot during a pre-arranged hijack/robbery and does not say that there was a contract-to-kill.
Before he set up a robbery-hijack with Tongo, Mbolombo was the only man who knew Qwabe. It's extremely likely that Mbolombo and Qwabe had a phone conversation soon after the crime. (Mbolombo would also have phoned Tongo.) On hearing what had happened in Gugulethu, Mbolombo would have felt urgently that he must get the men to agree a story that would make him seem as innocent as possible. When Willem da Grass then offered him complete immunity in return for the story, Mbolombo would pressure the other three and/or tell them that da Grass would help them too. When the police first had Qwabe in custody, it makes sense that they would notice any attempt he made to tell them an outrageous lie, such as the one which Mbolombo had suggested. They would have dismissed his, "we were paid to do it" suggestion and have written a statement for him to sign which was consistent with the one that Mngeni had given. Perhaps they did the same with Tongo, ignoring a wild story (although Tongo, not being eager to pretend he'd arranged a murder, and not yet aware of any plea bargain opportunity, was probably still in two minds about accusing Shrien.) Without any consultation with Tongo (because he wasn't arrested yet), William da Grass went ahead and promised immunity to Mbolombo who, after all, was 'informing on' Tongo, suggesting that Tongo had brought the 'hit' idea to him on 12/11/2010. It would be easy for da Grass to manipulate Tongo when he could be visited in jail.
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| The lawyer appears to be claiming that the police frightened Qwabe into signing a document in which he says that Anni was shot during a pre-arranged hijack/robbery and does not say that there was a contract-to-kill. |
Did Mbolombo, somehow, make sure he'd be questioned before Tongo could be arrested (or was that da Grass' idea?) That way, Mbolombo could get the murder-conspiracy version on record and Tongo would be under pressure to make the same allegation when visited by da Grass? With da Grass reassuring Mbolombo of immunity from prosecution, Mbolombo could call Tongo and say to him, "You can say what you like but this is the version I will be telling." He could say that anyway. With da Grass behind him, he could also say, "Why not get a lighter sentence for yourself?"
Further indication of Attorney da Grass' angry determination is shown in Guard. - Use Ctrl+F to find 'da gras' in the article or click on the image below.
Click to see full screen
The accusers began to show contempt for their audience by being flippant with detail in their spoken testimonies, blunting any hope for a clear sense of what happened.
After some time in jail and speaking to Attorney da Grass, Tongo submitted a statement which incriminated Shrien. Qwabe and Mbolombo had already made new statements that accused Shrien, but with details that do not stand up to scrutiny. Both Tongo and Mbolombo were allowed to change their statements twice but there still were conflicting details. (This is made clear in the Panorama documentary.) Only Xolile Mngeni stuck to his original statement, made only to police and not incriminating Shrien. He mentioned Shrien politely, using the Xhosa word for, "the white man".
The W. Cape High Court has not incorporated the information discovered by the BBC team when they retrieved the CCTV record from Mbolombo's workplace (the Reception at the Colosseum Hotel.) In the early afternoon on the fateful Saturday, that CCTV recorded people in an excited conversation about "R10,000!" which Tongo had for a "helicopter trip" for "rich people!" Later, early in evening, Mbolombo is recorded talking on a Hotel landline to Tongo and they discuss the money: Mbolombo tells Tongo to give some of it to their two crime accomplices by visiting them after he collects the Dewanis, i.e. by detouring to the men on the way to Somerset West. "And also take your share!", he says to Tongo.
However, in the statements made with da Grass' guidance, Tongo and Qwabe say that "R10,000" was received at some time during the evening trip across False Bay. They must say this because, for their 'murder-contract' story to make any sense, Tongo couldn't have received a hit payment in the day-time: It would be obvious that he could have simply disappeared with it, without killing anybody.
In statements and interviews, Tongo comes up with a variety of cash totals 'received for the hit' but he always includes a, "R10,000" amount. (He wants it always to seem that the money spoken of at the Colosseum 'matches' the amount he 'paid the hit-man'.)
Members of the Western Cape criminal justice system didn't care about the inconsistencies in Tongo's narrative, because his 'hit' story makes the crime seem unique, a 'one-off' caused by a foreigner, which does less damage to the image of Cape Town.
It's worth analysing what Tongo said in a court appearance that was described on 8 December 2010: IoL/T. He said that on Friday 12 Nov 2010, Shrien "was willing to pay R15,000" to "have a client of his taken off the scene". (In Pano'13, he said that the proposal and its agreement were made on arrival at the Cape Grace Hotel when he and Shrien had gone into the Hotel reception ahead of Anni, leaving her in the taxi for a few minutes.) However, in News24a, it's revealed that Tongo says he and Shrien talked about the murder proposal the next morning when they went to an illegal money-exchange to buy Rands at a better rate than the official one provides:
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| Click on the image |
In IoL/T, Tongo says that, after dropping the Dewanis at the Cape Grace, he visited his friend Monde Mbolombo (not mentioning that he was at the Colosseum Hotel) and that they began to discuss the murder plan. Monde gave him the mobile phone number for Qwabe, who lived in the township area (such areas were set up during apartheid days and were called 'townships') on the Cape Flats. "R10,000" would go to "the hit-man" because Mbolombo, "wanted R5000" for organizing the hit.
Later in the hearing, Tongo says he took Dewani to a side-street money dealer at 11 am in the next morning to get some local currency 'under-the-counter', a common practice in S. Africa since long before the end of apartheid. (Hoping we'll now assume that Shrien then agreed to paying more for the 'hit'?) Tongo says: "For my assistance, I would be paid R5000", and then: "I informed Qwabe and Mngeni that they would receive R15,000". (These two men were in the Cape Flats and had no way to share money with Mbolombo in the city.) Therefore, the grand total becomes at least R35,000, depending on how you interpret the testimony:
R10,000 (for 'hit-man' - this was 'Mbolombo's suggestion' because he wanted £5000 from the original "£15,000".)
R5000 (for Mbolombo)
R5000 (for Tongo)
R15,000 (for Qwabe and Mngeni - Tongo now says he told Qwabe this would be their pay.)
Finally, Tongo says that Shrien only gave him R1000 'afterwards', not the promised R5000. News24a shows that there was a payment of R1000 to Tongo by Shrien for transport to the '96 Winery Rd' restaurant, which better explains the transaction.
Tongo doesn't want it to be noticed that the "R10,000" for a "helicopter trip", spoken of on the daytime Colosseum Hotel CCTV is actually the only money that changed hands before the hijack. Even Jeremy Vine of the BBC, who retrieved the Colosseum footage for the first time and says that Shrien had already mentioned giving Tongo that amount to pay for a helicopter tour, didn't seem to realize that the CCTV shows why Tongo has always chosen "R10,000" to be the amount that's inserted into his story, as 'the hit-man's share'.
Tongo says that the hit-man's pay was R10,000 so that people will associate any mention of Shrien's helicopter "R10,000" with it, without scrutinizing details of time and place. R10,000 is an amount that's played with by all three accusers. Mostly, they add increments of R5000 to it, e.g. "Monde (Mbolombo) said that he wanted R5000 for organizing the hit-man and that we should pay the hit-man R10,000." (IoL/T.)
Tongo has never been asked to talk about the Colosseum Hotel footage in which he chats, early in the day, about having R10,000 for arranging a helicopter tour "for rich people".
With a little probing, BBC Panorama's discovery of the Colosseum Hotel CCTV footage should have provided a complete understanding of what happened to the Dewanis. However, Panorama chose to 'balance' their documentary by 1. including suggestion by one person that Shrien had a desire to avoid heterosexual marriage (translated absurdly into a motive for murder of the spouse) and, 2. being creative with some CCTV footage.
It was suggested that if a man is failing to become more heterosexual through hormone augmentation, he might suddenly become desperate and end his nuptials by having his bride assassinated. Much was made of a single allegation, made by a homosexual prostitute (obviously enjoying the free advertising for his 'business'), that Shrien had 'secretly wanted to avoid marrying Anni'.
Panorama's audience was then shown two CCTV extracts from the Cape Grace Hotel in tandem with highly suggestive narrative. In the first extract, Shrien turns and points at Anni in a saucy way, on the way to bed with her. Panorama's audience hears Jeremy Vine say that the gesture was "unfortunate, given what he's accused of".
Then, there was damning insinuation about Shrien's smiling while on the phone to a friend in England. The England friend becomes yet another confidant in 'the conspiracy to murder', giving a total of six conspirators? Panorama's tabloid technique caused a spike in newspaper articles. Many millions saw the production in the UK, and a Youtube copy has received more than 430,000 hits: Panorama/'13. - previously blocked by the BBC.
Definitive conclusions which the BBC missed altogether: 1. The "R10,000!" that's mentioned on CCTV in the afternoon at the Colosseum Hotel could not have been given to Tongo by some other "rich people" who, by coincidence, had also wanted him to arrange a "helicopter trip". (If it was not Shrien's money then why did Mbolombo suggest sharing it with the Gugulethu men that evening?) Therefore, we know that the daytime "R10,000!" was Shrien's money (he'd already said that he'd asked Tongo to use the money for the honeymoon helicopter tour) and Tongo's plea bargain statement is wildly inconsistent with what's in the Colosseum CCTV record.
2. Shrien did not place a separate bundle of cash in a "pouch" in the taxi that night. If that was his intention, he would not have given Tongo "R10,000!" in the morning, for a surprise helicopter trip for Anni. (Tongo claims that R10,000 was put into the taxi's "pouch" but, in the same hearing, he says: "Qwabe said that we had to leave the R15 000 in the cubby hole of the vehicle...", IoL/T.)
3. Tongo has never spoken of the daytime "R10,000!" which we know about only from the CCTV at the Colosseum Hotel. Tongo never mentions it because it reveals how he put his 'hit' story together. It's the only "R10,000" that isn't fictional.
With a little probing, BBC Panorama's discovery of the Colosseum Hotel CCTV footage should have provided a complete understanding of what happened to the Dewanis. However, Panorama chose to 'balance' their documentary by 1. including suggestion by one person that Shrien had a desire to avoid heterosexual marriage (translated absurdly into a motive for murder of the spouse) and, 2. being creative with some CCTV footage.
It was suggested that if a man is failing to become more heterosexual through hormone augmentation, he might suddenly become desperate and end his nuptials by having his bride assassinated. Much was made of a single allegation, made by a homosexual prostitute (obviously enjoying the free advertising for his 'business'), that Shrien had 'secretly wanted to avoid marrying Anni'.
Panorama's audience was then shown two CCTV extracts from the Cape Grace Hotel in tandem with highly suggestive narrative. In the first extract, Shrien turns and points at Anni in a saucy way, on the way to bed with her. Panorama's audience hears Jeremy Vine say that the gesture was "unfortunate, given what he's accused of".
Then, there was damning insinuation about Shrien's smiling while on the phone to a friend in England. The England friend becomes yet another confidant in 'the conspiracy to murder', giving a total of six conspirators? Panorama's tabloid technique caused a spike in newspaper articles. Many millions saw the production in the UK, and a Youtube copy has received more than 430,000 hits: Panorama/'13. - previously blocked by the BBC.
Definitive conclusions which the BBC missed altogether:
1. The "R10,000!" that's mentioned on CCTV in the afternoon at the Colosseum Hotel could not have been given to Tongo by some other "rich people" who, by coincidence, had also wanted him to arrange a "helicopter trip". (If it was not Shrien's money then why did Mbolombo suggest sharing it with the Gugulethu men that evening?) Therefore, we know that the daytime "R10,000!" was Shrien's money (he'd already said that he'd asked Tongo to use the money for the honeymoon helicopter tour) and Tongo's plea bargain statement is wildly inconsistent with what's in the Colosseum CCTV record.
2. Shrien did not place a separate bundle of cash in a "pouch" in the taxi that night. If that was his intention, he would not have given Tongo "R10,000!" in the morning, for a surprise helicopter trip for Anni. (Tongo claims that R10,000 was put into the taxi's "pouch" but, in the same hearing, he says: "Qwabe said that we had to leave the R15 000 in the cubby hole of the vehicle...", IoL/T.)
3. Tongo has never spoken of the daytime "R10,000!" which we know about only from the CCTV at the Colosseum Hotel. Tongo never mentions it because it reveals how he put his 'hit' story together. It's the only "R10,000" that isn't fictional.
3. Tongo has never spoken of the daytime "R10,000!" which we know about only from the CCTV at the Colosseum Hotel. Tongo never mentions it because it reveals how he put his 'hit' story together. It's the only "R10,000" that isn't fictional.
There was no official investigation of the Colosseum Hotel CCTV. Somebody had told police not to make any more discoveries once Shrien was in the grip of the plea bargains? (See timeslive for a glimpse of the feverish desire to punish Shrien. Judge Traverso is spoken of as follows: "Through her repeated demeanour, she sought to intimidate, undermine and speak down to the prosecution. This occurred because of her hostility and her bias in favour of the defence.")
Mrs Theresa May approved Shrien's extradition in September 2011 after a District Judge (Howard Riddle) had ruled on the matter (telegraph.co.uk.) Three Crown judges ruled that the extradition would not be "cruel or unjust", in spite of Shrien's state of health (see: unjust and judiciary.gov). The decision, in favour of extradition, rested on the existence of plea bargains, but such bargains are not used in the UK's courts. Nobody checked whether there was anything more substantial than accusation in the "docket" against Dewani. The cost of the extradition was entirely a waste of public money: bit.ly/250k. 
Post-trial developments:
November 2014: Mbolombo declared himself a liar in court, specifically in the hearing of State vs. Mngeni (guard/mbo and enca/Nov.)
It has been proved that Mngeni told the truth about who used the gun, i.e. that Qwabe fired it: dfacts.15 - see under 'Anomalies', it says: "In ..Dewani’s 2014 trial, the Judge ordered ..forensic tests be carried out properly, and ..proved ..that Qwabe was the shooter, not Mngeni." Also see: news/uk.) Therefore, It seems reasonable to believe the rest of Mngeni's solitary statement which described a hijack that was arranged only for the purpose of robbery.
What's fairly unique about the Dewani story is that a judge allowed Da Grass, Mbolombo, Tongo and Qwabe to use lies in an organized way, to exploit public hysteria, destroy focus, and fob the justice system. Once the three thieves realized that they could revise statements, contradict each other, and even contradict themselves with impunity, then they could easily draw attention away from just one fact, i.e. that Shrien handed R10,000 to Tongo before lunchtime on 13/11/2010, to pay for a helicopter tour. Was the Colosseum CCTV record excluded because it would probably have nullified the plea bargains and destroyed the request for extradition?
The 2015 media noise about Mbolombo's previous lies also serves as a red herring. By drawing more attention toward himself, Mbolombo is still keeping people's minds off that "helicopter" conversation at his workplace, and the one where he tells Tongo: "And also take your share".
Information of wider relevance:
In South Africa, mobile phones have been used to set up similar robberies on the road, e.g. 30mugd in 2014: A hotel worker (like Mbolombo) had probably phoned/texted the armed motorcyclists when 30 Americans were leaving on a bus. (Three years later, 36 Dutch tourists suffered a similar fate: Reuter.) 
Mobile phones have been making a few types of crime more likely to occur. A BBC documentary shows that even poor Mexicans are becoming targets for kidnappers because they can usually be reached by mobile phone to make demands for ransom. Organized carjacking has also become a problem in Russia: upi.com. (US advisory: Don't Be a Victim.) At least 25% of farms in the UK suffered crime in 2015, some of it well organized (ref. BBC "Countryside 999", 17/03/16.)
On BBC Sunday Morning Live (09/07/2017), it came to light that the C of E Synod has condemned men who fight off homosexual urges by obtaining hormonal treatment. The synod said that such men are an obstacle to the happiness of the 'gay community' and that people should 'follow their feelings' and become gay, rather than bolstering their heterosexuality with hormone supplements. (This position is astonishing considering the amount of body mutilation that is performed under the banner of "sex reassignment surgery".) The C of E still has a voice in South Africa (e.g. Bishop Tutu of Cape Town.) Did Theresa May's C of E links have an impact on the decision to extradite Dewani?
© 2016
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The original blog follows:
Contents
Pre-crime sequence.
Elements of the 'case' against Shrien.
Discussion
Crucial facts have never been considered.
The case against Shrien had no evidence.
Tongo's tale.
Tongo's third statement is impossible because....
Recap: The plausible account of the shooting.
How the details fit with the plausible account.
Important material that was excluded or was poorly understood.
i) The Colosseum Hotel footage.
ii) The alleged text messages.
iii) Tongo "did not know" who his victim was.
iv) The single shot was not aimed./ Where did the R10,000 go?/ Why....
v) Tongo's lies tied him into a plea bargain....
Conclusion
2015, subsequent to Shrien's acquittal:
"the matter will now rest"
The plea bargain was fake.
Read more.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hit-men are known to work alone but in this case, allegedly, there was a chain of command: Shrien told Tongo, who told Qwabe, who told Mngeni to shoot "the client", and Mbolombo gave them all assistance free-of-charge? Jump to: The impossibility of the 'hit' story .
Information of wider relevance:
In South Africa, mobile phones have been used to set up similar robberies on the road, e.g. 30mugd in 2014: A hotel worker (like Mbolombo) had probably phoned/texted the armed motorcyclists when 30 Americans were leaving on a bus. (Three years later, 36 Dutch tourists suffered a similar fate: Reuter.)
On BBC Sunday Morning Live (09/07/2017), it came to light that the C of E Synod has condemned men who fight off homosexual urges by obtaining hormonal treatment. The synod said that such men are an obstacle to the happiness of the 'gay community' and that people should 'follow their feelings' and become gay, rather than bolstering their heterosexuality with hormone supplements. (This position is astonishing considering the amount of body mutilation that is performed under the banner of "sex reassignment surgery".) The C of E still has a voice in South Africa (e.g. Bishop Tutu of Cape Town.) Did Theresa May's C of E links have an impact on the decision to extradite Dewani?© 2016
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The original blog follows:
Contents
Pre-crime sequence.
Elements of the 'case' against Shrien.
Discussion
Crucial facts have never been considered.
The case against Shrien had no evidence.
Tongo's tale.
Tongo's third statement is impossible because....
Recap: The plausible account of the shooting.
How the details fit with the plausible account.
Important material that was excluded or was poorly understood.
i) The Colosseum Hotel footage.
ii) The alleged text messages.
iii) Tongo "did not know" who his victim was.
iv) The single shot was not aimed./ Where did the R10,000 go?/ Why....
v) Tongo's lies tied him into a plea bargain....
Conclusion
2015, subsequent to Shrien's acquittal:
"the matter will now rest"
The plea bargain was fake.
Read more.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hit-men are known to work alone but in this case, allegedly, there was a chain of command: Shrien told Tongo, who told Qwabe, who told Mngeni to shoot "the client", and Mbolombo gave them all assistance free-of-charge? Jump to: The impossibility of the 'hit' story .
Pre-crime sequence
On the morning of Saturday 13/11/2010 in Cape Town, Shrien exchanged foreign currency under-the-counter in a jeweler's shop, recommended by Tongo. He obtained R10,200 which he handed to Tongo, who had offered to get him a good price on a helicopter tour.
Tongo had said that a hotel receptionist he knew would help buy the helicopter tour, but he had already visited that receptionist to talk about having Shrien and Anni mugged. As soon as Shrien had mentioned a helicopter tour, Tongo had thought of an ideal way to make the money for it disappear: it could seem to "vanish" during the hijack that he and the receptionist were planning. It would be a guaranteed steal for Tongo, even if the hijack didn't earn him much.
The sequence of events:
Friday, 12th November 2010 - p.m.
• The Dewanis land at Cape Town's international airport in the afternoon, and Zola Tongo drives them to the Cape Grace Hotel. He notices that Anni has striking jewellery. (One ring was worth R450,000 at that time.) He makes "jovial" conversation about Cape Town and points out landmarks, mentioning that he owns a vehicle for working in his spare time. Shrien and Anni are friendly and do not avoid conversation with him.
• Arriving at the Cape Grace Hotel, Shrien continues talking with Tongo while Anni goes ahead into the reception area (recorded on CCTV, see Panorama/'13.) Tongo has offered Shrien his phone number so that he can call any time for more taxi services. Shrien then catches up with Anni to tell her he's discussing with Tongo what they can do in Cape Town, and goes back to Tongo for 9 minutes. He makes sure he has keyed Tongo's number correctly by sending him a text message right away. Tongo explains the layout of Cape Town and mentions False Bay, with its pretty wine route on the eastern side.
• Tongo phones Mbolombo at the Colosseum Hotel, saying that he's had passengers with good-looking jewellery and that they will be using his services again! Mbolombo invites him over and they exit the hotel (recorded on CCTV) to talk outside. After just 2 minutes, they re-enter with purpose and a female receptionist asks what they are doing. "Calm down man! You don't want to know!" snaps Tongo, and she forces a laugh, startled by his hostility. Mbolombo takes a phone out of a desk drawer and looks through the contacts for the number of a man called Qwabe.
• Tongo makes two short calls to Qwabe (of 79 and 41 seconds' duration), arranging to visit him in the next afternoon. He sends a text message to Shrien, saying that he has talked things over with his taxi boss and, "yes", he does want to be their on-call driver for as long as they are in Cape Town.
• Shrien has a tiff with Anni in a nearby restaurant in the evening, and decides to pluck up courage to go on a helicopter coastal tour, to please her. (Perhaps their argument was about such a tour: they had argued about other details during their holiday.) He leaves the restaurant to go and get his phone, and finds Tongo's message. He calls Tongo and they talk (for 5 minutes, 26 secs) about setting up a helicopter tour, Tongo asks what exchange rate Shrien had received earlier at a bureau de change, and recommends Golden Touch Jewellers, a short car trip from the Cape Grace, for getting more ZAR at a better rate in the morning. (Informal currency deals used to be common practice in South Africa.)
Saturday, 13th November 2010
• Just before midday, Shrien is taken to Golden Touch Jewellers and he exchanges US dollars for R10,200, which he passes to Tongo. (R10,000 might seem a lot for a helicopter tour, but there are some that visit towns along the Garden Route, making overnight stops at quality lodges.) Possibly, the R10,000 also covered some advance payment for Tongo's driving, or Shrien might have planned to pay him from R4000 that he already had. (It was in his pocket when the mugging occurred.) He might have planned to pay Tongo a lump sum after their first evening out, if he'd been pleased with his driving. He had made a booking at a fine-dining restaurant in Somerset West for that evening; see photo in dailym.ai.
• Back at the Cape Grace Hotel, Shrien spends the rest of the day relaxing by the pool with Anni. His ceremonies and wildlife safari are over, and Anni's helicopter tour is being arranged by Tongo, or so he thinks.
• At 14:26, Tongo goes from dropping Shrien to see Mbolombo again, giving him a lift to his workplace. He talks about Shrien's R10,000 that he has in the taxi, and says that he can make it seem to "vanish" during the hijack that night: The hijackers will have temporary possession of the taxi and, after Shrien and Anni have been robbed, he will tell them that the cash has been stolen from where he had stored it, temporarily e.g. "in a pouch behind the front passenger seat." (This is a cunning idea and he improvises it later, when things go wrong.)
• The Colosseum Hotel receptionists are soon talking about a "helicopter trip" costing "R10,000 ..that's expensive!" (see Panorama, Sep 2013. - at risk of being blocked.) Although Tongo plans to steal the R10,000, he doesn't care if the conversation is being recorded on CCTV. It's only going to be another a hijack/mugging that won't interest police for long, or be traced back to Mbolombo's workplace. (The SAP never looked at the Colosseum's CCTV even when they were investigating a much more serious incident!) The Dewanis will probably claim on insurance after being robbed, and the crime won't get much attention after they return to England. (N.B. As the day goes by, Tongo does become more cautious about leaving a trace of anything he says in English. For example, when on the phone to Mbolombo that night from his taxi, he calls himself the "person who wants this". Had he already thought of a Plan B: to smear Shrien if anything went wrong?)
The value of ZAR had dropped from equivalence with the US Dollar (in the 1970s and 80s) to less than 1/10th of its value, but "R10,000" still has an impression in the minds of people. (It's value has halved again since Nov 2010: R10,000 now is worth less than £450.)
• In the afternoon, Mbolombo has been thinking about the R10,000 that Tongo has, and he phones him (also recorded on Colosseum CCTV at 6:35 pm) with suggestions for sharing it with the muggers, to encourage them. This reveals that he and Tongo had discussed stealing it.
Tongo did not share his adopted R10,000, and he left it at home that night (or in a locker at the airport.) In his plea bargain statement, he refers to "a pouch behind the front passenger seat" as its last known location. After the mugging led to a homicide, he created a story that Shrien had replied to a text-message, saying that 'payment for the hit' was placed in "a pouch behind the front passenger seat". This story keeps the police and WC High Court from wondering where the money has gone actually. Mugger Mngeni did not mention collecting R10,000 from a "pouch behind the front passenger seat" but Qwabe says it was there. Whatever anybody believes, Tongo can say, if asked: "Shrien might have left it there or he might have tricked me, kept it in his pocket, and taken it to England".
We know now that Shrien passed R10,000 to Tongo at midday, because it is referred to more than twice in afternoon CCTV footage at the Colosseum Hotel. However, Tongo keeps this fact out of his statement for the plea bargain. If he wants to convince people that the money was payment in a murder contract: he cannot say that Shrien gave it to him in the a daytime: People would ask why he didn't just keep the money and disappear. Tongo has managed to sell his hit story only by saying that Shrien paid at night, in the taxi.
Once Shrien 'paid in the taxi', Tongo could have simply abandoned him in Khayelitsha without taking "the lady" to the 'contract killers', but there is a readiness to believe that Shrien somehow compelled him to take part in a murder.
Tongo has since told journalists that Shrien had a hypnotically evil power over him. In his prison cell, he's obviously been following the hype* in the South African media, and has been hoping to use it to some advantage. With so many officials appearing to have swallowed his 'hit' story, he made a show of calling on Shrien to "repent and tell the truth!" (*An example of the hype: Helen Zille, the premier of the Western Cape province, had said: “I can't believe there is such evil in the world. . .This evil appears to have been compounded by the abuse of South Africans.” - Telegraph.uk)
Of course, Tongo hopes that nobody will realize that access to Shrien's R10,000 was what strengthened his motive to do as Mbobolombo suggested: to set up a robbery (not a murder.) He is compelled now by his plea bargain partners to say that Shrien forced him to arrange a murder.
Elements of the 'case' against Shrien.
- Mngeni, speaking in Xhosa, described the hijack exactly as Shrien had when interviewed by police. This was his only statement and is video recorded. (See it in Panorama, Sep 2013 - at risk of being blocked.) Both said, independently, that R4000 in cash was taken from Shrien, and that he begged not to be separated from Anni.
- Mngeni says that Shrien was forced out of the taxi by Qwabe, and Anni was taken further into Khayelitsha. Qwabe stopped the taxi, snatched his gun from Mngeni, and it discharged when he struggled to take Anni's handbag from her (see news/uk.)
- Qwabe made a statement in custody that was rehearsed with Tongo and Mbolombo, and that contradicted his initial claim to innocence. He said that Shrien had contracted for Anni to be killed, and that Mngeni fired the shot. (Qwabe owned the gun and carried gloves to keep his prints off it, and tests in 2014 showed primer residue on a glove. See dfacts.'15 and news24/gun.) He volunteered no details. (People making false insurance claims are also observed to falter when challenged for detail. Ref. BBC One, 'Claimed and Shamed')
- All four South Africans were offered a 'plea and sentencing agreement' in which they were given motives for making Shrien a suspect. Mngeni wanted no part in the agreement. Before long, the media announced that three people can bear witness that Shrien solicited a hit. The judge (Henney) did not observe that Qwabe first met Shrien only during the hijack, and Mbolombo never met him at all.
- With no evidence either way, the judge (Henney) upheld Qwabe's statement that Mngeni fired the gun. By destroying Mngeni, he removed the witness to Shrien's innocence.
- Qwabe was located in Gugulethu when Shrien's deal, with Tongo, was said to be made in Cape Town. However, he makes a specific accusation about the quantity of money involved, saying that he had told Tongo (or Mbolombo, the wording is not clear) to provide R15,000 for a murder. He alleges that he and Mngeni ended up with only R14,000 (ref. guardian/gunman): R10,000 was, allegedly, taken by Mngeni from "the pouch", and the R4000 was taken from Shrien's pocket. (In Mngeni's statement, there is no mention of collecting "R10,000" that had, allegedly, been secreted within the taxi by Shrien. Also, If Shrien had agreed to provide Qwabe with R15,000, but only had R14,000 available, then why not put it all into "the pouch".)
- BBC Panorama presented international experts who said that the CSI done by SAP was very elementary (e.g. "not good practice", "not an effective investigation".)
- The SAPS are "under resourced" (e.g. using unnecessary force in Cape Town, 2014.) They had an opportunity to test who was truthful about the gunshot, by working carefully at the crime scene. If they had proved that Qwabe was the shooter, confirming Mngeni's statement, then Mngeni would have been taken seriously when he indicated that Shrien was an innocent victim.
- Tongo's plea bargain statement is contradicted by CCTV record at the Colosseum Hotel, because he says that Shrien paid him R10,000 in the night on Saturday. He states that he reminded Shrien by text message, to leave payment in the taxi, only half-an-hour before the 'hit' took place. However, Colosseum CCTV shows Tongo and receptionists talking about "R10,000" much earlier in the day. (They were animated because the cash was for a "helicopter trip" for "rich people".) Later in that afternoon, Mbolombo is seen on the Hotel's land-line, advising Tongo to give some of the money to Qwabe and Mngeni, and then take his "share". The police and the WC High Court continue to ignore the Colosseum footage, having given immunity to Mbolombo.
- Mngeni shows sadness in the police video when telling of Qwabe's homicidal act, but the judge (Henney) accused him of showing no remorse while being framed for that act in court. (Henney called him "the evil man, the killer".)
- The South African justice system gives no guarantee of a fair trial because prosecutors can string very flimsy plea bargains together that simply organize some accusations, rather than helping to link villains with hard evidence. A defendant who is detained on the basis of such finger-pointing is extremely vulnerable, having no right to a jury. (Nationalists 'scrapped' the right in 1969.) British judges can send consular monitors to Shrien's trial, but only a jury system might have secured correct verdicts in the trials of the South Africans.
- Tongo's murder story inflamed people world-wide after it received official status by means of the plea bargain. In South Africa, the National Police Commissioner called Shrien "this monkey" on TV. Even BBC News aired the following misstatement, late in 2014: "Dewani took his wife out for an evening meal and then went back to the hotel alone. They found her body the next morning . . . on a street in Cape Town."
- As in the case of Christopher Jefferies, Shrien was detained, vilified and imprisoned "in order to establish the truth". (See Jefferies' story.)
On the morning of Saturday 13/11/2010 in Cape Town, Shrien exchanged foreign currency under-the-counter in a jeweler's shop, recommended by Tongo. He obtained R10,200 which he handed to Tongo, who had offered to get him a good price on a helicopter tour.
Tongo had said that a hotel receptionist he knew would help buy the helicopter tour, but he had already visited that receptionist to talk about having Shrien and Anni mugged. As soon as Shrien had mentioned a helicopter tour, Tongo had thought of an ideal way to make the money for it disappear: it could seem to "vanish" during the hijack that he and the receptionist were planning. It would be a guaranteed steal for Tongo, even if the hijack didn't earn him much.
The sequence of events:
Friday, 12th November 2010 - p.m.
• The Dewanis land at Cape Town's international airport in the afternoon, and Zola Tongo drives them to the Cape Grace Hotel. He notices that Anni has striking jewellery. (One ring was worth R450,000 at that time.) He makes "jovial" conversation about Cape Town and points out landmarks, mentioning that he owns a vehicle for working in his spare time. Shrien and Anni are friendly and do not avoid conversation with him.
• Arriving at the Cape Grace Hotel, Shrien continues talking with Tongo while Anni goes ahead into the reception area (recorded on CCTV, see Panorama/'13.) Tongo has offered Shrien his phone number so that he can call any time for more taxi services. Shrien then catches up with Anni to tell her he's discussing with Tongo what they can do in Cape Town, and goes back to Tongo for 9 minutes. He makes sure he has keyed Tongo's number correctly by sending him a text message right away. Tongo explains the layout of Cape Town and mentions False Bay, with its pretty wine route on the eastern side.
• Tongo phones Mbolombo at the Colosseum Hotel, saying that he's had passengers with good-looking jewellery and that they will be using his services again! Mbolombo invites him over and they exit the hotel (recorded on CCTV) to talk outside. After just 2 minutes, they re-enter with purpose and a female receptionist asks what they are doing. "Calm down man! You don't want to know!" snaps Tongo, and she forces a laugh, startled by his hostility. Mbolombo takes a phone out of a desk drawer and looks through the contacts for the number of a man called Qwabe.
• Tongo makes two short calls to Qwabe (of 79 and 41 seconds' duration), arranging to visit him in the next afternoon. He sends a text message to Shrien, saying that he has talked things over with his taxi boss and, "yes", he does want to be their on-call driver for as long as they are in Cape Town.
• Shrien has a tiff with Anni in a nearby restaurant in the evening, and decides to pluck up courage to go on a helicopter coastal tour, to please her. (Perhaps their argument was about such a tour: they had argued about other details during their holiday.) He leaves the restaurant to go and get his phone, and finds Tongo's message. He calls Tongo and they talk (for 5 minutes, 26 secs) about setting up a helicopter tour, Tongo asks what exchange rate Shrien had received earlier at a bureau de change, and recommends Golden Touch Jewellers, a short car trip from the Cape Grace, for getting more ZAR at a better rate in the morning. (Informal currency deals used to be common practice in South Africa.)
Saturday, 13th November 2010
• Just before midday, Shrien is taken to Golden Touch Jewellers and he exchanges US dollars for R10,200, which he passes to Tongo. (R10,000 might seem a lot for a helicopter tour, but there are some that visit towns along the Garden Route, making overnight stops at quality lodges.) Possibly, the R10,000 also covered some advance payment for Tongo's driving, or Shrien might have planned to pay him from R4000 that he already had. (It was in his pocket when the mugging occurred.) He might have planned to pay Tongo a lump sum after their first evening out, if he'd been pleased with his driving. He had made a booking at a fine-dining restaurant in Somerset West for that evening; see photo in dailym.ai.
• Back at the Cape Grace Hotel, Shrien spends the rest of the day relaxing by the pool with Anni. His ceremonies and wildlife safari are over, and Anni's helicopter tour is being arranged by Tongo, or so he thinks.
• At 14:26, Tongo goes from dropping Shrien to see Mbolombo again, giving him a lift to his workplace. He talks about Shrien's R10,000 that he has in the taxi, and says that he can make it seem to "vanish" during the hijack that night: The hijackers will have temporary possession of the taxi and, after Shrien and Anni have been robbed, he will tell them that the cash has been stolen from where he had stored it, temporarily e.g. "in a pouch behind the front passenger seat." (This is a cunning idea and he improvises it later, when things go wrong.)
• The Colosseum Hotel receptionists are soon talking about a "helicopter trip" costing "R10,000 ..that's expensive!" (see Panorama, Sep 2013. - at risk of being blocked.) Although Tongo plans to steal the R10,000, he doesn't care if the conversation is being recorded on CCTV. It's only going to be another a hijack/mugging that won't interest police for long, or be traced back to Mbolombo's workplace. (The SAP never looked at the Colosseum's CCTV even when they were investigating a much more serious incident!) The Dewanis will probably claim on insurance after being robbed, and the crime won't get much attention after they return to England. (N.B. As the day goes by, Tongo does become more cautious about leaving a trace of anything he says in English. For example, when on the phone to Mbolombo that night from his taxi, he calls himself the "person who wants this". Had he already thought of a Plan B: to smear Shrien if anything went wrong?)
Tongo did not share his adopted R10,000, and he left it at home that night (or in a locker at the airport.) In his plea bargain statement, he refers to "a pouch behind the front passenger seat" as its last known location. After the mugging led to a homicide, he created a story that Shrien had replied to a text-message, saying that 'payment for the hit' was placed in "a pouch behind the front passenger seat". This story keeps the police and WC High Court from wondering where the money has gone actually. Mugger Mngeni did not mention collecting R10,000 from a "pouch behind the front passenger seat" but Qwabe says it was there. Whatever anybody believes, Tongo can say, if asked: "Shrien might have left it there or he might have tricked me, kept it in his pocket, and taken it to England".
We know now that Shrien passed R10,000 to Tongo at midday, because it is referred to more than twice in afternoon CCTV footage at the Colosseum Hotel. However, Tongo keeps this fact out of his statement for the plea bargain. If he wants to convince people that the money was payment in a murder contract: he cannot say that Shrien gave it to him in the a daytime: People would ask why he didn't just keep the money and disappear. Tongo has managed to sell his hit story only by saying that Shrien paid at night, in the taxi.
Once Shrien 'paid in the taxi', Tongo could have simply abandoned him in Khayelitsha without taking "the lady" to the 'contract killers', but there is a readiness to believe that Shrien somehow compelled him to take part in a murder.
Tongo had said that a hotel receptionist he knew would help buy the helicopter tour, but he had already visited that receptionist to talk about having Shrien and Anni mugged. As soon as Shrien had mentioned a helicopter tour, Tongo had thought of an ideal way to make the money for it disappear: it could seem to "vanish" during the hijack that he and the receptionist were planning. It would be a guaranteed steal for Tongo, even if the hijack didn't earn him much.
The sequence of events:
Friday, 12th November 2010 - p.m.
• The Dewanis land at Cape Town's international airport in the afternoon, and Zola Tongo drives them to the Cape Grace Hotel. He notices that Anni has striking jewellery. (One ring was worth R450,000 at that time.) He makes "jovial" conversation about Cape Town and points out landmarks, mentioning that he owns a vehicle for working in his spare time. Shrien and Anni are friendly and do not avoid conversation with him.
• Arriving at the Cape Grace Hotel, Shrien continues talking with Tongo while Anni goes ahead into the reception area (recorded on CCTV, see Panorama/'13.) Tongo has offered Shrien his phone number so that he can call any time for more taxi services. Shrien then catches up with Anni to tell her he's discussing with Tongo what they can do in Cape Town, and goes back to Tongo for 9 minutes. He makes sure he has keyed Tongo's number correctly by sending him a text message right away. Tongo explains the layout of Cape Town and mentions False Bay, with its pretty wine route on the eastern side.
• Tongo phones Mbolombo at the Colosseum Hotel, saying that he's had passengers with good-looking jewellery and that they will be using his services again! Mbolombo invites him over and they exit the hotel (recorded on CCTV) to talk outside. After just 2 minutes, they re-enter with purpose and a female receptionist asks what they are doing. "Calm down man! You don't want to know!" snaps Tongo, and she forces a laugh, startled by his hostility. Mbolombo takes a phone out of a desk drawer and looks through the contacts for the number of a man called Qwabe.
• Tongo makes two short calls to Qwabe (of 79 and 41 seconds' duration), arranging to visit him in the next afternoon. He sends a text message to Shrien, saying that he has talked things over with his taxi boss and, "yes", he does want to be their on-call driver for as long as they are in Cape Town.
• Shrien has a tiff with Anni in a nearby restaurant in the evening, and decides to pluck up courage to go on a helicopter coastal tour, to please her. (Perhaps their argument was about such a tour: they had argued about other details during their holiday.) He leaves the restaurant to go and get his phone, and finds Tongo's message. He calls Tongo and they talk (for 5 minutes, 26 secs) about setting up a helicopter tour, Tongo asks what exchange rate Shrien had received earlier at a bureau de change, and recommends Golden Touch Jewellers, a short car trip from the Cape Grace, for getting more ZAR at a better rate in the morning. (Informal currency deals used to be common practice in South Africa.)
Saturday, 13th November 2010
• Just before midday, Shrien is taken to Golden Touch Jewellers and he exchanges US dollars for R10,200, which he passes to Tongo. (R10,000 might seem a lot for a helicopter tour, but there are some that visit towns along the Garden Route, making overnight stops at quality lodges.) Possibly, the R10,000 also covered some advance payment for Tongo's driving, or Shrien might have planned to pay him from R4000 that he already had. (It was in his pocket when the mugging occurred.) He might have planned to pay Tongo a lump sum after their first evening out, if he'd been pleased with his driving. He had made a booking at a fine-dining restaurant in Somerset West for that evening; see photo in dailym.ai.
• At 14:26, Tongo goes from dropping Shrien to see Mbolombo again, giving him a lift to his workplace. He talks about Shrien's R10,000 that he has in the taxi, and says that he can make it seem to "vanish" during the hijack that night: The hijackers will have temporary possession of the taxi and, after Shrien and Anni have been robbed, he will tell them that the cash has been stolen from where he had stored it, temporarily e.g. "in a pouch behind the front passenger seat." (This is a cunning idea and he improvises it later, when things go wrong.)
• The Colosseum Hotel receptionists are soon talking about a "helicopter trip" costing "R10,000 ..that's expensive!" (see Panorama, Sep 2013. - at risk of being blocked.) Although Tongo plans to steal the R10,000, he doesn't care if the conversation is being recorded on CCTV. It's only going to be another a hijack/mugging that won't interest police for long, or be traced back to Mbolombo's workplace. (The SAP never looked at the Colosseum's CCTV even when they were investigating a much more serious incident!) The Dewanis will probably claim on insurance after being robbed, and the crime won't get much attention after they return to England. (N.B. As the day goes by, Tongo does become more cautious about leaving a trace of anything he says in English. For example, when on the phone to Mbolombo that night from his taxi, he calls himself the "person who wants this". Had he already thought of a Plan B: to smear Shrien if anything went wrong?)
The value of ZAR had dropped from equivalence with the US Dollar (in the 1970s and 80s) to less than 1/10th of its value, but "R10,000" still has an impression in the minds of people. (It's value has halved again since Nov 2010: R10,000 now is worth less than £450.)• In the afternoon, Mbolombo has been thinking about the R10,000 that Tongo has, and he phones him (also recorded on Colosseum CCTV at 6:35 pm) with suggestions for sharing it with the muggers, to encourage them. This reveals that he and Tongo had discussed stealing it.
Tongo did not share his adopted R10,000, and he left it at home that night (or in a locker at the airport.) In his plea bargain statement, he refers to "a pouch behind the front passenger seat" as its last known location. After the mugging led to a homicide, he created a story that Shrien had replied to a text-message, saying that 'payment for the hit' was placed in "a pouch behind the front passenger seat". This story keeps the police and WC High Court from wondering where the money has gone actually. Mugger Mngeni did not mention collecting R10,000 from a "pouch behind the front passenger seat" but Qwabe says it was there. Whatever anybody believes, Tongo can say, if asked: "Shrien might have left it there or he might have tricked me, kept it in his pocket, and taken it to England".
We know now that Shrien passed R10,000 to Tongo at midday, because it is referred to more than twice in afternoon CCTV footage at the Colosseum Hotel. However, Tongo keeps this fact out of his statement for the plea bargain. If he wants to convince people that the money was payment in a murder contract: he cannot say that Shrien gave it to him in the a daytime: People would ask why he didn't just keep the money and disappear. Tongo has managed to sell his hit story only by saying that Shrien paid at night, in the taxi.
Once Shrien 'paid in the taxi', Tongo could have simply abandoned him in Khayelitsha without taking "the lady" to the 'contract killers', but there is a readiness to believe that Shrien somehow compelled him to take part in a murder.
Tongo has since told journalists that Shrien had a hypnotically evil power over him. In his prison cell, he's obviously been following the hype* in the South African media, and has been hoping to use it to some advantage. With so many officials appearing to have swallowed his 'hit' story, he made a show of calling on Shrien to "repent and tell the truth!" (*An example of the hype: Helen Zille, the premier of the Western Cape province, had said: “I can't believe there is such evil in the world. . .This evil appears to have been compounded by the abuse of South Africans.” - Telegraph.uk)Of course, Tongo hopes that nobody will realize that access to Shrien's R10,000 was what strengthened his motive to do as Mbobolombo suggested: to set up a robbery (not a murder.) He is compelled now by his plea bargain partners to say that Shrien forced him to arrange a murder.
Discussion
"There are very few things we know on Earth with absolute certainty, so it is for a jury to decide." ~ Schools: Young Legal Eagles, BBC 2, 23/05/2014.
When Frederick Aiken attempted to save Mary Surratt from the gallows in 1865, the right to a jury trial was being ignored by military tribunals. The prosecutor was moving stridently against Mary, calling witnesses who were obviously enjoying 'gifts' that he had organized. In desperation, Aiken procured a writ of habeas corpus in the middle of the night from an official who was still his friend. (Even his fiancée had ostracized him for not refusing to be Surratt's defense.) The writ should have made it possible to secure a hearing with civilian jury, but Mary received notice in the morning that she was to be hanged within 12 hours. - The new US President had suspended her writ immediately. Mary's son didn't come out of hiding and she was executed in his place. Aiken changed profession (became the first Editor at the Washington Post) and then persuaded the Supreme Court to protect the right to a jury henceforth, even during war.
See film about the above: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0968264/
This is not the first case in which there has been an attempt by South Africans to get a British subject into jail by deceiving police and judges. In 1974, Peter Hain very nearly received a sentence for a robbery which had been orchestrated by South African nationalists inside an English bank. At the last minute, a witness came forward and swore that Hain was not the person he'd seen running from the scene of the crime.
Given South Africa's historic surge in crime, what happened to the Dewanis was not surprising. The impact of trade sanctions caused many business closures in the 1990's, with the lowest paid suddenly finding themselves unemployed. New sorts of felony have been emerging year by year.
Zola Tongo was exploiting a vulnerability at airports that other criminals had also noticed. Men had been lurking at O.R. Tambo International and then following arrivals onto the road, because they could be mugged easily when stopping at their homes. Tongo's plan for a mugging went wrong because his accomplices had no experience with their handgun.
Tongo could communicate freely with Qwabe and Mbolombo for almost a week before his arrest. After arrest, a straightforward explanation of the homicide was replaced by the one that's become world-famous. (Did they receive the idea for a 'hit' story from a policeman or lawyer after they had made their first statements?) Qwabe and Mbolombo made poor copies of Tongo's second and third versions of events, but nobody minded the conflict in the details, and nobody checked the new stories against details in the existing police docket (ref. BBC, Sep 2013. - now blocked)
Experts appearing for a BBC Panorama documentary said that the SAPS had not appreciated how important it was to ascertain which of the two muggers caused Anni's death, and a feeble CSI had been done.
Tests have since shown that Qwabe fired the gun (see dfacts.15 - "Anomalies") Mngen's statement, that the crime was a robbery-gone-wrong, might have been believed if it had been shown in 2010 that he was telling the truth about who fired the shot. The Dewanis and the Hindochas have been let down, and judiciary have smeared Shrien in order to conceal outrageous levels of criminality in South Africa today.
Tongo said that Shrien gave him R10,000 for the services of a hit-man (worth about £902 then; less than £450 today, 27/12/2015) In his 3rd statement, Tongo quotes a total of R15,000 but then implies that R25,000 must have been agreed... R15,000 for the hit-men, R5000 for Mbolombo, and R5000 for himself (see Tongo words.) This was probably done to make the cash total seem slightly less implausible as a 'hit' payment, and to bring things in line with Qwabe's statement that he'd asked for R15,000. Strangely, Tongo then ends his 3rd statement by saying that he accepted R1000 for his role, not R5000. He was exploiting the opportunity to utter more facts and figures that were confusing and different from before... Nobody would realize that only R10,000 changed hands, which was not for a murder contract.
Tongo's skill in mixing up the money details distracted even the BBC's Jeremy Vine: Mr Vine has not realized that the "R10,000!", discussed openly at the Colosseum Hotel, was what gave Tongo the idea to say that R10,000 was placed in his taxi, just minutes before the homicide. There's no chance that, while working with the Dewanis, Tongo was also organizing a "helicopter trip" for a different couple of "rich people!", for "R10,000".
There was a strong motive for theft, but none for murder. One of Anni's rings was worth R450,000 (ca. £25,000 at the time.) The gunshot was incidental to a violent robbery, and not the action of a contract killer... Apart from a lack of motive to kill, the shot was not aimed in a recognizable way (see capitalbay). The alleged 'hit men' obviously retreated in haste from the crime scene, leaving jewelry that was worth far more than anything they took with them.
Crucial facts have never been considered.
CCTV footage from the Colosseum Hotel was not collected by the SAP, and it reveals that:
1) Tongo is concealing that he had Shrien's "R10,000" early in the day of the hijack. 2) Monde Mbolombo played a role in theft of that money, and in the armed robbery later.
While important facts have been kept out of court, gossip has been given a full response. A big effort went into suggesting that Shrien looked at social media sites frequented by 'gay' people, ref. guar/gun. A homosexual prostitute was flown to South Africa to say that Shrien told him that he was reluctant to marry Anni. (Free advertising for the prostitute!)
The case against Shrien had no evidence.
Cases that rely on hear-say, rather than evidence, are often settled in civil courts. TV personality, Judge Judy, says that verdicts for such cases are reached after considering the balance of "what's possible" and "what's likely". In order to decide what's possible, the judge needs to be analytical, e.g. Is it possible that Qwabe witnessed Shrien arranging a hit if he was nowhere near him until the hour of the crime? In order to know what's likely, the judge needs to have experience of people and the society in which the crime took place, e.g. Is it likely that millionaire Shrien would tell Tongo that he had organized a similar hijack/murder in South Africa before? ..on which streets? Ref. Telegraph.uk.
The judge (Henney) did not make reference to any crime trends in South Africa. As a result, people following this case in Britain will have no idea just how often car-jacking goes on, and how often fatalities result.
The judge didn't show much knowledge of his society, but he also made no effort to understand where the Dewanis were coming from, e.g. It is customary in India to call the same tuk-tuk driver more than once if you find him agreeable; e.g. The Dewanis did not know, in advance, that there are such dangerous suburbs so close to the smart centre of Cape Town, or that muggers had recently started to find their victims at airports, or that cell phones were being used to organize crimes on the roads. In condemning Mngeni, Henney was simply supporting the side with the most accusers, and the gang of thieves had nothing to lose by lying, everything to gain.
Did the focus on Shrien keep people from realizing that common thieves now have cars, motorbikes and cell phones? With people like Mbolombo working in hotels, mobile muggers can plan where to stop tourists on the road, e.g. 30 Americans mugged in transit, after leaving a hotel.
13/07/2015: Is it time to recognize that South Africa might now be the worst place in the world to hire a taxi?: Another assault on a taxi customer in Cape Town.
The soaring rate of car hijacking in South Africa would have made the mugging look like an everyday incident, if it hadn't gone wrong. In 2010, a person was 110-times more likely to be hijacked in SA than in the USA. (In 2014, the US population was 6.1-times bigger than that of SA, but SA had 18-times more car-jacks annually.)
BBC's Reggie Yates shows that crime at night in the Cape Flats is at world record levels: "The Cape Flats just outside Cape Town, are now the epicentre of violent crime in the country" A mugger like Qwabe becomes a violent adversary. More images of mugging
The South Africans still have sentences that figure in a motive provided by Shrien. Mngeni has been silenced forever, and Mbolombo has been let off altogether. There was not a convincing pursuit of justice.
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The soaring rate of car hijacking in South Africa would have made the mugging look like an everyday incident, if it hadn't gone wrong. In 2010, a person was 110-times more likely to be hijacked in SA than in the USA. (In 2014, the US population was 6.1-times bigger than that of SA, but SA had 18-times more car-jacks annually.)
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BBC's Reggie Yates shows that crime at night in the Cape Flats is at world record levels: "The Cape Flats just outside Cape Town, are now the epicentre of violent crime in the country" A mugger like Qwabe becomes a violent adversary. More images of mugging |
Tongo's tale
Tongo says that Shrien offered money to have "a client ..taken off the scene". A deal was struck quickly in the taxi when Anni had gone ahead into the reception area, on first arrival at the Cape Grace Hotel (5:13 pm). Tongo implies that Shrien first went away somewhere and then, "approached me alone", which does not fit well with the CCTV record. Shrien is alleged to have offered "R15,000" for a hit, and Tongo would get R5000 from that total which was about one-half of his monthly earnings. (In another part of Tongo's 3rd statement, R15,000 was offered but middle-man, Monde Mbolombo, would get the R5000. By the end of the statement, it seems that R25,000 was available, because Tongo and Mbolombo were both being offered R5000, and Qwabe had asked for R15,000. Ref. Tongo words.) Meanwhile, Mbolombo insists that he wanted no "blood money!".
Tongo words: "Monde said that he wanted R5000 for organizing the hit man and that we should pay the hitman R10 000". Then: "I informed Qwabe and Mngeni that they would receive R15,000. Qwabe said that we had to leave the R15,000 in the cubby hole of the vehicle and that they would also take my cellular telephone during the hijacking”. It's no accident that Tongo injects confusion about the money. It's also no coincidence that he mentions "R10,000" more than once. It is the amount that Shrien had given him to cover the cost of a helicopter tour. If people ever get to see the Colosseum Hotel footage, he hopes they'll just think that the "R10,000!" is consistent with his 'hit' statement: he has never mentioned receiving money for a helicopter tour.
Fact: After booking in at the Cape Grace Hotel, Shrien did go on foot to obtain R10,000 from a bureau de change. Later, he decided to get an additional R10,000 to spend on a helicopter tour of the coast. For that, Tongo drove him to an informal money-changer the next day (Golden Touch Jewellers, near Greenmarket Square.)
Fiction: In return for R10,000 (plus R5000 for Tongo), an armed hold-up of Tongo's taxi would be staged, during which an unidentified "lady" would be killed. That lady would be arriving at the Cape Grace Hotel that night.
After leaving the Dewanis at the Cape Grace, Tongo went to see Mbolombo at the Colosseum Hotel (at 5:42 pm.) Mbolombo gave him a cell phone number of a man called Qwabe, who lived on the Cape Flats. Tongo phoned Qwabe at 6:41 pm, and then visited him in the following afternoon. Qwabe agreed to do an armed hold-up of the taxi with an associate, Mngeni, that night. In Tongo's original statement, he said that the hijack was to be done for robbery, but now he says that he was arranging an assassination with Qwabe, to be done 4 hours later.
Tongo did collect Shrien and "the lady" at 7:54 pm on Saturday, and drove them 9 miles east from Cape Town on the N2, entering the environment known as the Cape Flats. He detoured south from the N2 into Gugulethu, where he now says that a murder was to take place. Conveniently, Anni had shown interest in a 'township tour'. (This has been confirmed by a police account of their first communications with Shrien. Friendly Anni and Shrien were simply open to ideas coming from Tongo.)
'Hit-men' Qwabe and Mngeni were nowhere to be seen in Gugulethu, and Tongo says that he decided to drive a lot further eastward, ending up at a restaurant in Strand (27 road miles from Cape Town.)
Near 10:45 pm, on the return trip to Cape Town, Tongo detoured again into Gugulethu, where Qwabe and Mngeni raised a gun to 'hijack' the taxi. Qwabe and Mngeni let him out of the taxi and traveled eastward with the Dewanis on a township road. They robbed Shrien and "the lady", and then 'made a pretense' of forcing Shrien out in Khayelitsha. (Surely, Shrien would have climbed out willingly and quickly if he was the instigator of a murderous gunshot that he knew was about to be fired?) They sped off, traveling less than 2 miles further in a north-westerly direction, and "killed the lady". They abandoned Tongo's taxi suddenly, leaving behind the most valuable jewellery (worth at least 1000-times the amount that Shrien 'paid' for a hit.) No arrangement was made for Shrien to get out of Khayelitsha after 'the hit'.
Tongo's third statement is impossible because it requires that all of the following occurred within the same 30 hours:
• The first available taxi driver at the Airport agreed to arrange a hit for Shrien.
• The hit was discussed as soon as the 'target' was out of ear-shot for a few minutes on arrival at the Cape Grace Hotel, and the taxi driver was told that an unspecified "client"/"lady" was going to be the target. She was to be killed the next evening.
• A father of five, the taxi driver agreed to put his income at risk by setting up a hasty murder plot for which his payment would be five thousand Rand (about £450 at that time.)
• The driver said that he does "not associate .. with such things", i.e. contract killings, but he agreed straight away to take the victim to her death in his taxi.
• A hotel receptionist provided contact with a 'hit-man', but did not want any payment "because that is what I would call blood money".
• (Tongo says that) Shrien made a payment of R10,000 to the muggers by hiding it in a "pouch" behind the front passenger seat of the taxi. However, CCTV shows that Tongo had "R10,000!" much earlier in the day, provided by "rich people" who wanted him to arrange a "helicopter trip". It's just coincidence that Shrien says that Tongo had his R10,000 to arrange a helicopter trip for him?
• The two 'hit-men' had never done hits before. They first discussed the 'hit' on the Saturday afternoon and then completed it that evening..
• After visiting with the 'hit-men' on the Cape Flats, Tongo did not need to phone Shrien to ask if the "client"/”lady” had arrived at the Cape Grace Hotel, or to say that the hit was ready to take place after 8 pm that evening. Shrien could simply ask once, and all would be taken care of!
• Tongo drove an additional 18 miles from Gugulethu to the Somerset West area, simply because the muggers had not been in position for the hold-up at 8:30 pm. It's just a coincidence that the Dewanis had a reservation at a restaurant near Somerset West for 9:30 pm. (Obviously, Tongo hoped that the booking would not be brought to light, because it indicates that Shrien planned a trip to Somerset West for a sociable reason. Ref. dailym.ai.)
Click to enlarge.
• Shrien planned to be mugged at gunpoint in a dark township, so that Anni would never know that he wanted her killed. He planned to lose his phone, watch and cash to the muggers, and to be abandoned miles from his hotel, near midnight.
Fiction: In return for R10,000 (plus R5000 for Tongo), an armed hold-up of Tongo's taxi would be staged, during which an unidentified "lady" would be killed. That lady would be arriving at the Cape Grace Hotel that night.
• The first available taxi driver at the Airport agreed to arrange a hit for Shrien.
• The hit was discussed as soon as the 'target' was out of ear-shot for a few minutes on arrival at the Cape Grace Hotel, and the taxi driver was told that an unspecified "client"/"lady" was going to be the target. She was to be killed the next evening.
• A father of five, the taxi driver agreed to put his income at risk by setting up a hasty murder plot for which his payment would be five thousand Rand (about £450 at that time.)
• The driver said that he does "not associate .. with such things", i.e. contract killings, but he agreed straight away to take the victim to her death in his taxi.
• A hotel receptionist provided contact with a 'hit-man', but did not want any payment "because that is what I would call blood money".
• (Tongo says that) Shrien made a payment of R10,000 to the muggers by hiding it in a "pouch" behind the front passenger seat of the taxi. However, CCTV shows that Tongo had "R10,000!" much earlier in the day, provided by "rich people" who wanted him to arrange a "helicopter trip". It's just coincidence that Shrien says that Tongo had his R10,000 to arrange a helicopter trip for him?
• The two 'hit-men' had never done hits before. They first discussed the 'hit' on the Saturday afternoon and then completed it that evening..
• After visiting with the 'hit-men' on the Cape Flats, Tongo did not need to phone Shrien to ask if the "client"/”lady” had arrived at the Cape Grace Hotel, or to say that the hit was ready to take place after 8 pm that evening. Shrien could simply ask once, and all would be taken care of!
• Tongo drove an additional 18 miles from Gugulethu to the Somerset West area, simply because the muggers had not been in position for the hold-up at 8:30 pm. It's just a coincidence that the Dewanis had a reservation at a restaurant near Somerset West for 9:30 pm. (Obviously, Tongo hoped that the booking would not be brought to light, because it indicates that Shrien planned a trip to Somerset West for a sociable reason. Ref. dailym.ai.)
• Shrien planned to be mugged at gunpoint in a dark township, so that Anni would never know that he wanted her killed. He planned to lose his phone, watch and cash to the muggers, and to be abandoned miles from his hotel, near midnight.
Click to enlarge.
Recap: The plausible account of the shooting
Travel-weary Shrien and Anni were pleased by Tongo's helpful manner when they arrived at Western Cape International (at 17:13.) It seemed ideal when he said that he also had his own mini-bus for extra work, and suggested that he'd be able to drive for them in the evenings and beyond the city. They offered him good money to provide more transport later.
After dropping the Dewanis, Tongo went to see Monde Mbolombo (at 17:42), working on Reception at the Colosseum Hotel. A cruel idea made them excited: Tongo would think of holiday suggestions for the Dewanis, that would involve trips across the Cape Flats. It would be done at night, so he and Mbolombo looked up information about restaurants located near the mountains in the Somerset West area.
On his first morning in Cape Town, Shrien obtained R10,000 and entrusted it to Tongo, to arrange a helicopter coastal tour at a good price. (This is confirmed by lunch-time CCTV footage of conversation in the Colosseum Hotel.) Possibly, some of the money was part-payment for the drives that Tongo would be doing, beginning with a 50 mile round-trip to a restaurant in Somerset West that evening. (Shrien hadn't realized how far away that restaurant was.)
At 14:57, Tongo visited Mbolombo's contact, Qwabe, in Khayelitsha township. Qwabe agreed to recruit a second man, and they would be ready to stage a hold up of the taxi, late that night. Tongo detoured to the muggers while driving back with the Dewanis from the east side of False Bay. The 'hijack' began 9 miles east of Cape Town's business district at 10:45pm.
After raising a 7.62 mm handgun to indicate for Tongo to stop, the muggers made a pretense of telling him to get out of the taxi. They took Shrien and Anni some distance eastward and robbed them of jewellery, phones and cash. Anni still had her handbag and her best rings, and would not be persuaded to give them up. Qwabe wanted Shrien out of the way so that he could rob her more thoroughly, so he forced him out before driving off at speed. In police custody, mugger Mngeni stated that Qwabe stopped the taxi in western Khayelitsha, took the gun from him and walked around to Anni's door. He was trying to take her handbag when the shot was fired*. Later, it was found that she had dropped her most expensive rings in the taxi, probably when she was shot. In fear for her life, she had taken them off and offered them to Qwabe, but he was determined to have her bag.
* This has since been corroborated: see dfacts.'15 and news/uk.
How the details fit with the plausible account
• Possibly, Shrien was in disagreement with Anni about the desirability of a helicopter tour. Their disagreement was witnessed in a sushi bar next to their hotel on the first evening (8:13 pm). At 9:20 pm he left Anni in the restaurant to go and fetch his phone at the hotel. He found a text message from Tongo, and called him back before returning to Anni. (It was summer in Cape Town and the evenings are longer then.)
• That call lasted 5 minutes 26 seconds (ref. Panorama, Sep 2013.) Tongo said he would like to take the Dewanis on a tour of the city, and that a friend who was a hotel receptionist recommended a fine dining restaurant in Somerset West, on a beautiful Wine Route between Somerset West and Stellenbosch. Shrien said that sounded good, but did Tongo have knowledge of helicopter tours in the area? Tongo seized the moment, saying that his friend could organize that. He asked what exchange rate Shrien had received at the bureau de change earlier (cleverly, getting an idea of how much cash Shrien had on him) and offered to take him to Golden Touch Jewellers in the morning, to get more ZAR at a better rate.
Tongo does not mention this call (the only one lasting more than 2 minutes) in his court statement but he alleges that there was a call in the morning at 11:30, so that he can say that somebody 'witnessed' him receiving it. - Mbolombo has stated that he was present when that call was received: "All I could hear (Tongo say) was 'I'm on my way! I'm on my way!'" (see also citizen.za) Vodaphone say no call was made by Shrien at that time (ref. Panorama, Sep 2013.)
More proof of lies (noted by the BBC Panorama team): Another call that Tongo says he received from Shrien, later on Saturday and also 'witnessed' by Mbolombo, is also not on Shrien's mobile phone service record. This attempt to create some witness testimony indicates just how little reason there was for putting Shrien under suspicion. Note: Tongo is crafty with the power of suggestion. He hints that he normally uses his phone in loudspeaker mode, by saying in court that he 'switched it off' during one call because the couple were seated next to him. We are expected to infer that Mbolombo could have witnessed some angry calls from Shrien at times when he did not have it 'switched off'. (See: "The second call was apparently from Tongo to Mbolombo that evening, in which he said he had switched his phone off because he was sitting with the couple in a restaurant." ref. citizen.za.)
• 13/11/2010: When Shrien obtained R10,200 at Golden Touch Jewellers, it was a 'black market' deal. Informal currency exchanges were once common in South Africa, but now it was a mistake because Tongo could say: "That's actually illegal, you know" and Shrien would feel uneasy about what he'd done. He had made it possible for Tongo to intimidate him, and might be more easily persuaded by him to go to places that he wouldn't normally find interesting.
• On the second evening, Tongo delayed picking up the Dewanis at the Cape Grace Hotel until 7:54 pm (7:30 pm had been agreed), so that it would be late when the hold-up would take place. If Shrien was party to a 'hit' plan, it would have been an illogical and unnecessary risk to phone Tongo and ask where he was, while cuddling with Anni in a public part of the hotel. Tongo says that Shrien was agitated in that call because he wanted "the lady" murdered as soon as possible, but the CCTV shows Shrien and Anni in a good mood when the very short call was made (at 7:45 pm.) They had been relaxing together in the bar since 6:17 pm.
"Why didn't Shrien simply hire another taxi when Tongo was late at the Cape Grace?" Answer: He preferred to use one good taxi and not to risk having a poorly maintained one at some point. He also didn't want to travel in a strange place with a different driver each time.
• Tongo's real reason for first detouring into Gugulethu was to let Qwabe, loitering there, see what his taxi looked like. Tongo had use of two vehicles: a company taxi and one that he owned for extra work (see dailym.ai). He visited Qwabe in the afternoon in one of the vehicles, but needed to go there again so that Qwabe could see the one that he was using that night, and be sure to stop the right vehicle later, in the dark. (Alternatively, he might have gone there to give Qwabe a phone: 'Qwabe would steal Tongo's phone as a part of the deception': Tongo words.)
• Leaving Cape Town for a meal in Strand wouldn't make sense to a local resident. The 25 miles of N2 across the sandy Cape Flats is not an overly pleasant drive. However, The Daily Mail showed a photo of the reservations list at a fine dining restaurant near Somerset West, with the Dewanis booked for 9:30 pm (dailym.ai). 96 Winery Road is only 7 miles from Strand, but in an attractive green belt at the base of the Helderberg Mountains. It seems reasonable that Shrien decided against eating there when he realized how far it was from the Cape Grace Hotel. (This is the only time when he might have shown some irritation toward Tongo: Why had he suggested a restaurant so far from the Cape Grace?*) They would be late getting back if they only started placing à la carte meal orders after 9:30 pm. Instead, they decided to have a smaller meal in a less formal place, just after 9:33 pm.
* BBC Panorama looked closely at Tongo's claim that Shrien was furious and "said he was going to kill me" if the murder was not completed that night. The CCTV in the Strand mall shows no fury, and its clock indicates that there was not enough time between their arrival outside, and their appearance indoors, for such a threat to have been made.
Tongo had suggested 96 Winery Road to Shrien so that he could suggest, 'spontaneously', a detour into Gugulethu on the way there (as a sort of 'township tour'.) It made no sense to set out "late" from the Cape Grace at 8:00 pm, if the Dewanis were booked for 9:30 pm at the restaurant, because it's less than an hour's drive. Obviously, the 'township tour' was something that Tongo was determined to include, and he made sure that there was enough time for it. He did also meander in Cape Town 'to show them the lights' before heading east on the N2.
It is on record that Tongo also did suggest the alternative restaurant in Strand (The Surfside) when the Dewanis decided against fine dining at 96 Winery Road. He is seen on the Strand mall CCTV, getting in front and stretching to look, as if to reassure that the restaurant is open. The change in restaurants did not interfere with his mugging rendezvous, because they would pass Gugulethu on the way back from either restaurant. His phone/sms contact with Qwabe meant that he could alert him for timing.
• Shrien made his third phone call to Tongo at 9:56 pm, during the meal in Strand. It was very brief (93 seconds long) and with Anni present, simply to say that he and Anni would be ready to return to Cape Town at about 10:20 pm.
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A line on the map shows that the Dewanis were driven 50 miles before the hijack took place. After his first detour into Gugulethu, Tongo continued on the concrete N2 across the sandy Cape Flats to Strand (27 miles from Cape Town.) When Tongo detoured again, 2½ hours later, the muggers left him on the roadside and drove east on back roads to southern Khayelitsha. Qwabe wanted Anni's handbag and he forced Shrien out. The taxi was abandoned in western Khayelitsha, 8 miles east of Gugulethu.
If we could believe that Anni was the target of a hit, then Shrien performed an 'act' of care and affection toward her all day at the Cape Grace Hotel (on CCTV.) The natural ease between them was seen again in Strand outside the Surfside restaurant (on CCTV)*. According to Mngeni's statement, Shrien continued to 'seem' genuine during the hijack, holding Anni against him until Qwabe warned him to get out of the taxi. Then he paced the street, crying visibly when a public servant (Mr Matokazi) emerged from a house. |
Important material that was excluded or was poorly understood.
i) The Colosseum Hotel footage.
CCTV footage from the Colosseum Hotel proves* Shrien's claim that he planned a helicopter trip, and that he entrusted Tongo with R10,000 for it. This exchange of money occurred more than seven hours before the trip to Somerset West. (*It would have been easy for the SAPS to prove that no other "rich people" had, by coincidence, given Tongo "R10,000" to organize a "helicopter trip".)
In the footage, Tongo has come back to the Colosseum after taking Shrien to Golden Touch Jewellers. Female receptionists are talking about a "helicopter ride" costing "R10,000 ..that's expensive!" Mbolombo and Tongo come into view, and a receptionist says: "You know how to meet the rich people!" Mbolombo answers: "I believe he was cornered!"
(Was Shrien "cornered" because he needed to make amends with Anni for their argument and to pluck up the courage to fly in a helicopter? Anni appears very happy on Cape Grace Hotel passageway CCTV in the morning after their tiff.)
Tongo says that he reminded Shrien to make payment for 'the hit' in the taxi during the return trip from Strand, but both early and late afternoon Colosseum CCTV indicate that he had "R10,000!" beforehand.
Even if it's imagined that Shrien gave R10,000 to Tongo twice (Tongo has not suggested this, and R20,000 is not a total which anybody has suggested explicitly), why would he withhold R10,000 until returning from Somerset West, when it would seem odd to Anni that he was placing it in "a pouch behind the front passenger seat"? None of the accusers has produced evidence of any of the money.
In the afternoon, Mbolombo is seen on the phone to Tongo, advising him quite loudly, in Xhosa, to give money to the two township muggers: "Listen, don't give them it all up front". He tells Tongo to appear to give all the money that he has on him, "so they don't come crying to you". He also says: "You must take your share as well". He knew Tongo's plan: to say to Shrien and Anni that the helicopter money must have been stolen during the hijack, from where he had stored it for safe-keeping (e.g. in "a pouch behind the front passenger seat".) Tongo didn't agree with Mbolombo about encouraging the street men with some advance payment, and he kept the lot. (There's no honour among thieves.)
The SAP have not agreed to view the Colosseum CCTV footage, having granted immunity to Mbolombo. (When he agreed to accuse Shrien of conspiracy, he had never seen him in person or heard him on a telephone.)
ii) The alleged text messages.
An international crime consultant said that the case could be "unlocked" if it were possible to see text messages between Tongo and Shrien, sent during the return trip from Strand. Tongo sent Shrien a message at 10:40 pm and alleges that it read: "Don't forget the money." Shrien, allegedly, replied that he "would" place money in "a pouch behind the front passenger seat" (see: phone-evid.) This suggests that a successful London accountant would casually make digital proof of guilt! (Also: Why say now that it was Shrien's idea to put money there, if Qwabe had originally asked for "R15,000" to be put in a glove compartment? see: Tongo words) A copy of Tongo's text has not been seen and there is no service provider record of a reply from Shrien.
Tongo would not have keyed messages while driving on the fast N2 motorway. He might have prepared a message while waiting for the Dewanis in Strand. It's safe to assume that, immediately before (or after) he sent it, he also sent a text to Qwabe, to let him know that he would be in Gugulethu in about 5 minutes' time. The purpose of the 'nonsensical text' to Shrien was distraction: He could send "5 minutes" to Qwabe without anyone later wondering why he'd used his phone shortly before the hijack. If things had gone according to plan, he didn't want the Dewanis realizing later that he must have been alerting the muggers with his phone.
In Cape Grace footage, just hours before the shooting, Tongo makes a show of chivalry as he opens the door of his taxi for Anni. He had insinuated well with the Dewanis and they were fooled by him. In his statements, Tongo has invented a reverse situation: one in which Shrien was 'too close for comfort', phoning him frequently and even threatening to kill him if he didn't get the hit done a.s.a.p. He wants to create an impression that Mbolombo must have witnessed some of 'the several angry phone calls' he received from Shrien. However, there is no CCTV footage from before the crime in which Shrien looks impatient or angry.
iii) Tongo "did not know" who his victim was.
Tongo says that he was never aware that the woman he took to the 'hit-men' was Shrien's wife. However, his own plea-bargain partners both say that the plan was to kill "the wife". Obviously, when the three were together making up their hit story, they referred to the victim as "the wife", not "the lady". This continues to make Tongo uneasy because he wants to enjoy the plea-bargain but he doesn't want people to believe that, for a few thousand Rand, he is capable of having a complete stranger (a beautiful, well-educated newly-wed) murdered.
iv) The single shot was not aimed./ Where did the R10,000 go?/ Why was the best jewelry left on the floor?
In the video of mugger Mngeni's police interview (in the Xhosa language), his description of the robbery confirms Shrien's statement in detail, e.g. They both say that Shrien had R4000 taken from him. Therefore, it seems reasonable to believe what Mngeni says happened after Shrien was forced out by Qwabe: the taxi was driven a few miles further and stopped again. Cowardly Qwabe took the gun, walked around to Anni's door and struggled with her for her handbag, firing the gun*. In support of what Mngeni says, British experts concluded that the crime scene evidence suggested a single shot that was not aimed, not indicative of an execution. (*It since been corroborated that Qwabe fired the gun: dfacts.'15 in "Anomalies", and news/uk.)
In Mngeni's account of money-sharing after the crime, there is no mention of R10,000 from "a pouch behind the front passenger seat". His spending spree afterwards suggests that all he got was R2000 (a half-share of the R4000 taken from Shrien.) Only Qwabe mentions "R10,000" and this idea seems to have come from Tongo, along with the rest of his story.
Tongo's story is one that changes with time. More recently, he says that Shrien short-changed him because he and his men got only R15,000 in cash (rather than a 'promised', new total of R25,000.) His admission to a R15,000 gain reveals that he kept Shrien's R10,000 helicopter money, because Mngeni only mentioned sharing R4000, taken from Shrien's pocket, and gullible Shrien only gave Tongo R1000 before he left South Africa: 10,000 + 4000 + 1000 = 15,000.
The muggers took jewellery and phones worth about R140,000 (£7800) in 2010 but left two rings, one of which was worth R450,000. If the clumsy mugging was actually a hit, earning Qwabe and Mngeni only 'R10,000', it seems unlikely that they would leave such valuables behind.
v) Tongo's lies tied him into a plea bargain, and then there was no turning back.
Tongo had seven days of freedom after the crime to phone and visit Mbolombo, and Qwabe could talk to them both for 5 days. Da Grass, with approval from Shrien's in-laws, used Tongo's lies to get him out of the hot seat and put Shrien in it. Tag-along Mngeni had been arrested three days after the crime and had given a statement that made sense of Tongo's first statement, in which there was no mention of deliberate murder. In Tongo's and Qwabe's revisions, Mngeni was then framed as "the shooter".
Signing the "plea and sentencing agreement" was a turning point for Tongo because, while it offered him a reduced sentence, it also incriminated him more seriously. - Now, he's an agent for 'hit men', transporting the victim to them. (Surely, it would have made more sense to stick with a charge of organized robbery, than to have murder conspiracy hanging over him for the rest of his life? - Tongo is desperate.) As soon as he suggested that Shrien was a suspect, the police and officials ran with the ball and moved things quickly. Tongo really had no choice once the lawyer had set things up, because Mbolombo and Qwabe would have been very eager to see the plea and sentencing agreement signed and delivered. Tongo would be wise not to change his story again and let them down. (Somebody could arrange for his prison life to be horrendous.)
After inviting Mngeni to help him with a robbery, Qwabe then accused him of firing the gun. Mngeni was kept in the dark about Tongo's new murder story until it was presented as a 'plea bargain'. The bargain was not attractive to him because he was not guilty of murder and he had a terminal illness. A shorter sentence was of little value and he had no desire to frame Shrien. By rejecting the plea bargain, he testified that there was no murder contract.
Mbolombo recently boasted in court of having framed Mngeni in court: guard/false-evidence. The elaborate praise that Henney received for making an example of Mngeni now seems fatuous in the extreme: polity.org. It has also been proved that Qwabe fired the gun: see news/uk and dfacts.'15.
iv) The single shot was not aimed./ Where did the R10,000 go?/ Why was the best jewelry left on the floor?
v) Tongo's lies tied him into a plea bargain, and then there was no turning back.
Conclusion
Tongo's new trick was to give tourists a breezy welcome to the clean city of Cape Town and its Mediterranean climate. They would follow his suggestions about nice places to see. He'd offer them his cell phone number and 'build a relationship'.
It was easy to argue for an early payment when Shrien asked him if he would do evening drives, acting more as a chauffeur than a cabbie. Shrien mentioned a helicopter tour, and soon there was R10,000 in Tongo's taxi.
A desire to keep the R10,000 helped Tongo to make up his mind and have the Dewanis mugged as soon as possible. Mbolombo urged him to do a hijack, and a hijack would make it easy to suggest where the R10,000 had gone (e.g. 'The muggers must have found where I'd secured it in the taxi!') If Qwabe absconded with the spoils of the hijack, or couldn't sell the striking jewelry, Tongo would at least have R10,000 in his pocket.
Dewani and Mngeni made statements promptly in different places and different languages, but they agree perfectly in detail. Qwabe, Tongo and Mbolombo made up a story with the help of a lawyer who knows the serious weaknesses in South African legal process. They had previously made statements that did not implicate Shrien, and there are details in their final statements that do not match, and/or are in conflict with hard evidence. There are at least 6 falsities in Tongo's statement that cannot be accidental, ref. Panorama/'13.
The plea bargain brought no new facts to light, only accusations, but it made things official so that Shrien would be extradited back from England. The two 'witnesses' in it cannot testify to anything that Tongo says about Shrien's actions before the crime. - Only Tongo had any contact with him before the drive to Strand. Tongo implies that Mbolombo is a witness because of 'angry phone calls' received when he was standing nearby. He says that he turned to Mbolombo after a call and said: "This guy doesn't trust me!" However, calls were not made by Shrien at the times stated. Shrien only made one 5:26 minute call on the Friday evening, and two very short calls on Saturday evening, to summon Tongo for transport.
Officials confirmed Mbolombo's immunity in 2015 (see DPP-indem) even though CCTV record shows that he was active in planning the hijack, and acted as a telephonist for the crooks in the final few hours. The WC High Court has given Tongo a lightened sentence even though his own story casts him as a 'sub-contractor', passing money to men for murder.
The scatter of inconsistent details provided by Tongo and his 'witnesses' distracted even the BBC's Jeremy Vine. - He fished out the Colosseum Hotel footage but he didn't notice that it reveals a very important fact: Tongo only ever handled R10,000 of Shrien's cash, and Shrien passed him no money at night. There is no chance that the "R10,000!", mentioned in the afternoon at the Colosseum, was meant for buying a "helicopter trip" for a different couple of "rich people!"
The helicopter money was a catalyst. - It made the idea of having a 'hijack' much more attractive to Tongo, because he could steal it and say that it was taken by the 'hijackers' from where he'd secreted it in his taxi.
British judges should not have been asked to extradite Shrien, because the WC High Court should have asserted the following: 1) Cell phone company records are reliable evidence and they prove that Tongo lies profusely about conversations with Shrien. 2) The three phone calls made between Shrien and Tongo were too short and/or at the wrong times to give them roles in setting up a murder. 3) A proper study of the crime scene would have proved that Qwabe fired the gun (see news/uk and dfacts.'15, under "Anomalies"), showing Mngeni to be the reliable witness. 4) The CCTV footage from the Colosseum Hotel proves that Tongo's statement is perjury. In reality, he received money from Shrien at lunch-time to arrange a helicopter tour, and no money was left in the taxi in the night. The motive for the hijack was theft, not murder.
It was easy to argue for an early payment when Shrien asked him if he would do evening drives, acting more as a chauffeur than a cabbie. Shrien mentioned a helicopter tour, and soon there was R10,000 in Tongo's taxi.
A desire to keep the R10,000 helped Tongo to make up his mind and have the Dewanis mugged as soon as possible. Mbolombo urged him to do a hijack, and a hijack would make it easy to suggest where the R10,000 had gone (e.g. 'The muggers must have found where I'd secured it in the taxi!') If Qwabe absconded with the spoils of the hijack, or couldn't sell the striking jewelry, Tongo would at least have R10,000 in his pocket.
2015, subsequent to Shrien's acquittal:
Qwabe and Tongo continue to enjoy their plea bargain, and Mbolombo remains free. William Da Grass would have promised them that the bargain would not be cancelled if the case against Shrien was thrown out. All four men (Qwabe, Tongo, Mbolombo and Da Grass) could only benefit if Shrien was cast as the villain.
Da Grass knows the flaws in the South African system well, and it could only have been convenient for him that Mngeni died. As long as the 'murder-for-hire' story was unchallenged by what Mngeni might say (in addition to his frank statement to police), Da Grass could keep earning from the 'case'. With the tangle of lies having been favoured by the judge (Henney) in the trial of Tongo, Qwabe and Mngeni, it would now be complicated and expensive to organize an exploration of their true guilt, and that of Mbolombo. In the end, all that an honorable judge could risk doing was dismiss the 'case' against Shrien, and leave things as they stand. She doesn't have the resources to undo Henney's mess. (Judge Traverso has since been called a "racist Afrikaner" for not following the example of Henney. timeslive/23.)
"the matter will now rest"
October 2015: . . But senior coroner Andrew Walker, at North London Coroners' Court, said he did not have sufficient cause to resume an inquest. (See Coroner rules out UK inquest.)
"In these proceedings, the matter will now rest," he said. . . . .
An inquest might be embarrassing for the three High Court judges who extradited Shrien. English people might become curious about the "plea and sentencing agreement" that the South Africans used to ensnare him, and in the fact that Da Grass and the three criminals could only gain by setting it up.
The plea bargain was fake.
A fake plea bargain might be defined as one that does not expose an extra suspect with whom firm evidence can be associated.
The only evidence in this 'case' was that Mbolombo was said to have overheard angry phone calls being received by Tongo. Service provider Vodaphone has demonstrated that such calls, if they happened, were not from Shrien.
The ease with which plea bargains can be struck in South Africa should be a matter of concern for the judges who extradited Shrien. The laxity dates from a time when nationalists were in the habit of incarcerating anybody who did not obey 'Petty Apartheid' laws, and activists. In combination with the "abolition" of the right to a jury, it was a well-oiled technique for putting people away with a minimum of fuss; a tool for turning oppression into an every-day legal process (not forgetting that police then also had a nightly task of enforcing the Pass Laws, and often removed black men from white areas in a rough-and-tumble manner.) There was a need for court procedure that was swift if matters ever became 'complicated'.
The 'case' against Shrien shows how an apartheid-style plea bargain can be used to cast an overwhelming amount of suspicion onto anybody in South Africa. Da Grass might not be the first lawyer to realize that it can also be used to keep a case alive, i.e. to maintain a requirement for his 'legal services'.
South Africans framed an activist, Peter Hain, in England in 1974, and almost got him into jail for robbery at a bank. A news headline read: "'Why was the case brought?' ask MPs". In the Dewani case, an MP allowed a much more sinister frame-up to have some success.
Mbolombo has said openly in court that he lied in previous hearings, in order to frame Mngeni (see guard/false-evidence.) Judge Traverso even warned him that his ongoing immunity could be reversed, and that shut him up. He might otherwise have bragged that the whole case had been a complete fabrication. November 2015: In defiance of Traverso, the DPP has now secured his indemnity for all cases (see: DPP-helps-Henney-to-save-face.)
P.S. Why the extra R1000, on top of the R10,000 for a helicopter tour? - Perhaps Tongo told Shrien that the muggers had stolen everything in the mini-bus, including the helicopter money, a part of which was his payment for the driving. Therefore, Shrien reluctantly gave him another R1000/£90 when he visited at the Cape Grace for the last time (or was it R500/£45, or even less? Who knows with Tongo?) Shrien had no chance to talk about this in court, and mention of the Colosseum CCTV was being excluded by the Prosecution, anyway. His lawyer would have advised him at some point to stop volunteering information to journalists. "In my opinion Tongo wanted that R10,000 come hell or high water. So he told Shrien it had been stolen during the 'hijack', leaving him unpaid for driving and petrol."
© 2016
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The only evidence in this 'case' was that Mbolombo was said to have overheard angry phone calls being received by Tongo. Service provider Vodaphone has demonstrated that such calls, if they happened, were not from Shrien.
The ease with which plea bargains can be struck in South Africa should be a matter of concern for the judges who extradited Shrien. The laxity dates from a time when nationalists were in the habit of incarcerating anybody who did not obey 'Petty Apartheid' laws, and activists. In combination with the "abolition" of the right to a jury, it was a well-oiled technique for putting people away with a minimum of fuss; a tool for turning oppression into an every-day legal process (not forgetting that police then also had a nightly task of enforcing the Pass Laws, and often removed black men from white areas in a rough-and-tumble manner.) There was a need for court procedure that was swift if matters ever became 'complicated'.
The 'case' against Shrien shows how an apartheid-style plea bargain can be used to cast an overwhelming amount of suspicion onto anybody in South Africa. Da Grass might not be the first lawyer to realize that it can also be used to keep a case alive, i.e. to maintain a requirement for his 'legal services'.
South Africans framed an activist, Peter Hain, in England in 1974, and almost got him into jail for robbery at a bank. A news headline read: "'Why was the case brought?' ask MPs". In the Dewani case, an MP allowed a much more sinister frame-up to have some success.
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