The police must have been clairvoyant to know the exact details of tourist Anni Dewani's murder, the Western Cape High Court heard.
|||Cape Town - The police must have been clairvoyant to know the exact details of tourist Anni Dewani's murder, the Western Cape High Court heard on Wednesday.
The State put it to Xolile Mngeni, 25, that it was unbelievable the police could have told him what to say about the murder when he was the first to be arrested on November 16, 2010.
At that stage, they knew very little and could not have picked up details from convicted killers Zola Tongo and Mziwamadoda Qwabe, as their arrests only followed later.
Mngeni had claimed he was assaulted by police and told what to say to implicate him.
“Either they can see into the future or something,” prosecutor Shareen Riley said.
Mngeni has pleaded not guilty to hijacking, robbing and killing Dewani in Gugulethu on November 13, 2010.
Riley said there were very specific details the police could not have known in “making up” Mngeni's confession.
The first was that Mngeni had apparently been sitting in the back of Tongo's shuttle van, a VW Sharan, a few hours before the murder.
It was only later that two witnesses corroborated this sighting and testified as such.
“But they (the police) told me to say that,” Mngeni insisted.
The police could not have had any knowledge about a meeting between Dewani's killers on Saturday, nor that the killers were given a lift to the murder site.
Only later did various witnesses cement this knowledge, Riley said.
Mngeni denied ever getting a lift that night with Qwabe.
Riley said it was a mystery as to how the police could have known Qwabe was wearing yellow kitchen gloves while driving off with the hijacked vehicle.
Qwabe only revealed this later on and it was confirmed by forensics.
“They told me they had plastic gloves,” Mngeni said.
Judge Robert Henney summarised what the State was alleging.
“What the prosecutor is saying is that you put yourself in trouble. You left your fingerprint there, the police caught you... and you spilled the beans,” the judge said.
The accused said police made these “stories” up.
Riley said it would be the State's case that Mngeni was lying when he said he was not at the scene of the crime.
“The State has several witnesses, including Qwabe, who said you were in fact with him on November 13 and you were the one who, in fact, pulled the trigger.”
The trial continues. - Sapa