The dramatic claim was made by the state's prosecutor this morning in court.
State prosecutor Rodney de Kock told the Western Cape High Court that taxi driver Zola Tongo, arrested following the murder, was offered 15,000 rand (£1400) by Shrien Dewani to kill his wife Anni.
'The deceased was murdered at the instance of her husband,' De Kock said in reading out a plea bargain agreement which saw Tongo plead guilty to murder.
The taxi driver fingered Shrien Dewani and his Swedish wife Anni, 28, on their luxury holiday in Cape Town.
Tongo, 31, is said to have agreed to a plea bargain to ‘reveal all’ in exchange for a lesser sentence.
Over the past two weeks, there have been police leaks alleging that Mr Dewani, 30, a
millionaire businessman from Westbury on Trym, near Bristol, was involved.
But the claims have always been ‘off the record’ with no evidence presented.
Meanwhile Mr Dewani's friends claim he has been set up.
THE husband of murdered bride Anni Dewani fears he is being ‘set up’ by South African police, his friends revealed yesterday.
Sources close to Shrien Dewani claimed detectives were under political pressure to pin the horrific killing on someone other than a South African.
The millionaire businessman was said to be in an ‘absolutely dreadful state’ as he waits to return to Cape Town to identify the armed robbers who shot dead his wife on their honeymoon.
One friend said: ‘We are just increasingly conscious that there are some people who are definitely trying to set him up. It suits them because an English guy who has done this would be much less damaging to South Africa than if one of their own had done it.
The Dewanis, who had been married for two weeks, were hijacked on November 13 on the way back to their five-star hotel in central Cape Town.
They had agreed to take a detour through a township but within three minutes of leaving the motorway, the taxi was ambushed by two gunmen.
Mr Dewani was thrown out and his wife’s body was found later. She had been shot in the neck.
Two men and Tongo were arrested and charged with murder.
Mr Dewani's spokesman, Max Clifford, has repeatedly insisted that he is nothing other than a victim.