Killers framed Shrien Dewani after ransom plot went awry, court told Anni Dewani was killed in a bungled kidnap and ransom plot after which her killers framed her husband for murder, the trial of Shrien Dewani has been told. Rather than being deliberately targeted for assassination as the prosecution claims, the newlywed bride was shot by accident as her captors argued over whether to rape her, the defendant's barrister claimed in court. When Anni's killers realised their mistake, they discussed changing their plan to blackmail by threatening to blame Dewani for the killing unless he paid them. But, having received advice that this was unlikely to work, the gangsters chose instead to cut deals with the South African prosecution service by which they would benefit from accusing the Briton. This alternative account of Anni Dewani's murder in November 2010 was revealed during cross-examination of Zola Tongo, the South African taxi driver who has admitted murder and testified for the prosecution as part of a plea bargain deal. Dewani's barrister Francois van Zyl said he would call as a witness a convicted criminal named Bernard Mitchell who claims to have struck up a conversation with Tongo in prison. Van Zyl said Mitchell had been held in a cell not far from Tongo's in Cape Town's Malmesbury prison around a year after Anni's murder. The two men got talking in the prison's shower block and Tongo allegedly disclosed that Anni had been shot by accident, Van Zyl told Cape Town's high court. He told Tongo: "Mr Mitchell asked you to tell him whether it was true what he heard people say about the Dewani murder. You did not want to talk, but he convinced you that you could trust him. He asked: why was the woman killed? She was such a pretty girl. Why didn't they just rape her? It was at this point, Van Zyl told the court, that Tongo "explained that the plan was to kidnap [Anni] and to hold her hostage but that the whole plan went off the rails. When your accusers were on the way with her to the place where they wanted to hold her hostage, one of them wanted to rape her. A quarrel ensued and she was shot. According to Van Zyl's account of Mitchell's evidence, Tongo expressed the view that by killing Anni the bungling hijackers had "jeopardised the whole plan." So the gang adapted their tactics and discussed whether to blackmail Dewani by "threatening him that if he doesn't pay you the money, you will tell the police that he asked you to kill his wife. Mr Mitchell said you told him that you were advised this was a stupid plan and that it would be better to frame Dewani - to tell the police that it was Mr Dewani who asked you to kill his wife to take the spotlight off you and the others. Van Zyl said Mitchell claimed Tongo told him that while the world thought Dewani had killed his wife of two weeks, the reality was that he had "done nothing." Tongo rejected the defence's account of the shower-room confession as "nonsense and lies" concocted by someone who "saw this on television." Anni Dewani was shot once in the neck after the taxi she and her husband were travelling in was hijacked as it passed through the Cape Town township of Gugulethu on 13 November 2010. Tongo and two South African criminals have admitted their role in the murder. All three have testified for Dewani's prosecution, in return for either immunity from prosecution or time off their sentences. Shrien Dewani denies any involvement in his wife's murder.