It was "strange" that a taxi driver convicted of murder did not ask Shrien Dewani when he would be paid for killing the British businessman's wife, a South African court has been told.
Dewani's defence lawyer Francois van Zyl had tried to find out what arrangements Zola Tongo allegedly made with his client regarding a 5,000 rand (£283) payment for Anni Dewani's murder on November 13, 2010.
Dewani, an entrepreneur from Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, has pleaded not guilty to murder, kidnap, robbery with aggravating circumstances, and conspiracy, at a Cape Town court.
Dewani claims the couple were hijacked as Tongo was driving them through Gugulethu township in his minibus. He was released unharmed and Anni was driven away. She was found shot dead in the abandoned minibus the next morning.
Tongo, 34, who is serving an 18-year jail term, said during cross-examination that he and Dewani spoke about his commission the day the couple landed in Cape Town. He said he could not remember discussing how he would be paid, which Mr Van Zyl said he found strange because Tongo had described the payment as important.
The trial continues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article