Shrien Dewani broke off from a meeting with his wife Anni’s grieving father and ‘surreptitiously’ handed a packet of cash to Zola Tongo, it was claimed.
And he changed £1,000 in an untraceable black-market transaction hours before her death, the court was told.
Let out on £250,000 bail: Shrien Dwani (left) is accused of orchestrating the death of his new wife Anni
Prosecutors accused Dewani of using the cash to pay two men to shoot his 28-year-old wife in a sham carjacking in Cape Town.
The evidence was presented to the British High Court yesterday in a hearing that saw Dewani, 30, released from jail on £250,000 bail.
The businessman from Bristol is fighting extradition to South Africa where he is accused of conspiracy to murder.
Ben Watson, for the South African authorities, told the hearing: ‘The new evidence significantly undermines the account Mr Dewani has thus far given.
‘It is material which the South African authorities consider demonstrates that there is a very powerful case against him.’
Taxi driver Zola Tongo was jailed for 18 years in South Africa earlier this week for arranging the murder of Mrs Dewani. His sentence was reduced from 25 years after a plea bargain in which he alleged her husband instigated the killing
Tongo said Dewani asked him to hire two assassins after he drove the couple to their five-star hotel when they arrived in Cape Town on November 12. The hitmen were paid £1,000 between them for the killing, it was claimed.
Mr Watson said: ‘There is new evidence taken under oath that Mr Dewani exchanged $1,500 [£949] for South African rand on the morning of Saturday, November 13, at a black market currency dealer where no identity documents are required.’
The cash was described as a ‘dirty fund’ which Dewani could keep secret.
Mr Watson said: ‘A further claim made by Tongo is that he went to the Cape Grace Hotel on November 16 and was handed 1,000 rand (£92) by Mr Dewani as payment for his wife’s murder. That is also now supported by video footage. That video footage depicts Mr Tongo surreptitiously receiving a white plastic package
‘An affidavit from Vinod Hindocha, the father-in-law, who was with Mr Dewani at that time, confirms that Mr Dewani left his company without explanation after receiving a call. That has been confirmed from telephone records.
‘There can be no proper explanation for that transactions and the manner in which it was conducted.’
But Clare Montgomery QC said that any cash paid to Tongo was merely for his services as a driver and tour guide.
Last picture together: The Dewanis at a restaurant in South Africa just four days before the killing
Mr Justice Duncan Ouseley upheld the Chief Magistrate’s decision earlier this week to grant Dewani bail. The judge said: ‘I have concluded that he had a genuine and realistic interest in making sure that he clears his name.’
He added that the ‘tragic and terrible murder of his wife’ meant his face was well known and it would be difficult for him to leave the UK or ‘go underground’.
Dewani had been ‘distressed’ by overcrowding at Wandsworth Prison, South London, where he had been held, the court heard.
He was driven away from the prison at 5.30pm yesterday in a BMW X5, hiding beneath a blanket in the back.
Two other men accused of Mrs Dewani’s murder are due to stand trial in South Africa next month.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337693/Shrien-Dewani-meeting-taxi-driver-Annis-murder.html#ixzz17n5W7kf1
