Difference in evidence a mistake

Cape Town. 071210. Zolo Tongo appearing at the Cape Town High Court for the murder of UK tourist Anni Dewani. Picture Leon Lestrade. Story Jade Witten

Cape Town. 071210. Zolo Tongo appearing at the Cape Town High Court for the murder of UK tourist Anni Dewani. Picture Leon Lestrade. Story Jade Witten

Published Oct 30, 2014

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Leila Samodien

Justice Writer

“IT WAS a mistake.”

This was how jailed taxi driver Zola Tongo explained a difference – which, according to the defence, involved a “crucial part” of his evidence – between his verbal evidence at the trial and a statement to the police.

The evidence relates to when Shrien Dewani allegedly told him that the “job” he had for Tongo was for somebody to be killed.

Tongo offered the same explanation for several other differences that the defence questioned him on during cross-examination. He spent a third day on the witness stand yesterday at the trial of Dewani, a British businessman who stands accused of orchestrating the murder of his Swedish wife Anni while the newlyweds were on honeymoon in Cape Town almost four years ago.

Tongo, who struck a plea bargain with the State and is serving an 18-year jail sentence, is a key State witness. He provided transport for the Dewanis during their stay in Cape Town. This included driving them from the airport to their hotel when they arrived on November 12, 2010.

Defence counsel Francois van Zyl, SC, said Tongo testified that after they had arrived at the hotel from the airport, Dewani had at that point told him only that he had a job for him – not what kind of job it was – before going to check in.

In a statement to the police on November 26, 2010, however, Tongo had gone “much further”, saying Dewani had explained what the job was.

Van Zyl said this was a “crucial part of (Tongo’s) evidence”.

“It was a mistake,” said Tongo, who maintained that Dewani hadn’t said what the job was before he went into the hotel, but only when he returned from checking in.

According to Tongo, the person Dewani had told him had to be killed was Dewani’s female “business partner”. She was to arrive the day after the Dewani couple arrived.

He testified under cross-examination that it was a “mistake” that in his statement to the police, it was mentioned that the person who had to be killed would arrive later that evening – not the next day – and that there was no reference in the statement to the person being Dewani’s business partner.

Van Zyl also brought up a point in Tongo’s plea agreement, in which Tongo had said that it was a “client” of Dewani’s that had to be “taken off the scene”.

When asked whether it was a business partner or client that Dewani allegedly wanted killed, Tongo said it was a business partner.

“It’s a mistake, sir,” said Tongo, when asked why he’d referred to a client in the |plea agreement.

“Another mistake?” asked Van Zyl, to which Tongo responded: “Everybody makes mistakes.”

He was further questioned about parole, saying that he would be eligible for parole after serving half – nine years – of his sentence.

When asked by Van Zyl whether it would impact on his parole if, in testifying for the State, he deviated from his statements, Tongo first said no and that “everything depends on (his) behaviour” in prison.

He refused to comment on a “rumour” in June, 2011, that he wanted to change his evidence.

Earlier in yesterday’s proceedings, the court also saw more CCTV video footage, including a clip of the couple and Tongo arriving at a restaurant in Strand on the night of Anni’s murder.

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