A GUNMAN shot dead Anni Dewani to pay for his ritual circumcision, it was claimed last night.
TRAGIC: Shrien Dewani after being extradited [AP]
Last night Anni’s uncle Ashok said: “We have been informed of Mngeni’s reasons for shooting her and it has made us as a family even more angry.
“I have since read about the Zulu tribal initiation ceremony and it is meant to make men out of boys.
“But Mngeni has a sick view of it all. He shot a defenceless young woman on her honeymoon and planned to use his blood money to make himself appear as a man.
“He is not a man. He is an evil human being or even an animal and I hope he rots for the rest of his life in jail.
“Any such circumcision could not cost that much in South Africa and it is shocking to think he killed somebody for those reasons.”
MURDERER: Xolile Mngeni [AP] Zulu initiation ceremonies generally see young men forced into seclusion in the bush or mountains for around three months before undergoing circumcision and painting their skin with white clay.
Mngeni was convicted of premeditated murder and jailed for life. He was also convicted of aggravated robbery and illegal possession of a firearm.
Tongo was jailed for 18 years and Mziwamadoda Qwabe got 25 years for the murder. All three men implicated Anni’s husband as having ordered her murder.
Millionaire businessman Shrien Dewani, 34, of Bristol, was extradited to South Africa last week and charged with his wife’s murder after a three-and-a-half year battle to remain in Britain.
Dewani is accused of ordering the hit on his new wife Anni, 28, who was shot in Tongo’s taxi in November 2010.
He is said to have masterminded the apparent car-jacking of the cab after promising to pay Tongo and the hitmen. Dewani denies involvement.
He was flown in a chartered jet from Bristol Airport to Cape Town last Monday.
Airport chiefs at first told Scotland Yard they did not want him to fly from there because of the disruption the high-profile prisoner could cause.
The row ended when police agreed he would only be brought to the terminal an hour before take-off
TRAGIC: Shrien Dewani after being extradited [AP]
Her family say Xolile Mngeni was “ashamed” to have turned 25 without having the operation in line with tribal tradition.
Zulu boys are circumcised by the age of 18 and put through a gruelling regime as a right of passage.
But drug dealer Mngeni lived with his elderly grandmother and became stressed when friends discovered he had failed “to become a real man”.
The murder plot was suggested to him by taxi driver Zola Tongo.
Mngeni agreed because his share of the £1,400 hit fee would help pay for the circumcision and a three-month “initiation school” in the mountains.“We have been informed of Mngeni’s reasons for shooting her and it has made us as a family even more angry”Ashok, Anni Dewani's uncle
Last night Anni’s uncle Ashok said: “We have been informed of Mngeni’s reasons for shooting her and it has made us as a family even more angry.
“I have since read about the Zulu tribal initiation ceremony and it is meant to make men out of boys.
“But Mngeni has a sick view of it all. He shot a defenceless young woman on her honeymoon and planned to use his blood money to make himself appear as a man.
“He is not a man. He is an evil human being or even an animal and I hope he rots for the rest of his life in jail.
“Any such circumcision could not cost that much in South Africa and it is shocking to think he killed somebody for those reasons.”
MURDERER: Xolile Mngeni [AP] Mngeni was convicted of premeditated murder and jailed for life. He was also convicted of aggravated robbery and illegal possession of a firearm.
Tongo was jailed for 18 years and Mziwamadoda Qwabe got 25 years for the murder. All three men implicated Anni’s husband as having ordered her murder.
Millionaire businessman Shrien Dewani, 34, of Bristol, was extradited to South Africa last week and charged with his wife’s murder after a three-and-a-half year battle to remain in Britain.
Dewani is accused of ordering the hit on his new wife Anni, 28, who was shot in Tongo’s taxi in November 2010.
He is said to have masterminded the apparent car-jacking of the cab after promising to pay Tongo and the hitmen. Dewani denies involvement.
He was flown in a chartered jet from Bristol Airport to Cape Town last Monday.
Airport chiefs at first told Scotland Yard they did not want him to fly from there because of the disruption the high-profile prisoner could cause.
The row ended when police agreed he would only be brought to the terminal an hour before take-off
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