The Cape Town Regional Court convicted the 32-year-old London-based chartered accountant of fraud, incitement to commit murder, attempted murder and malicious damage to property.

Ghumman was convicted by a UK court in 2009 for stalking Hannah Rhind. On Friday, prosecutor Billy Downer urged the court to hand down a lengthy prison sentence.

"In similar vein, the accused became aware during the planning of these crimes that the Dewani murder had been committed by a hired a hit man," said Downer.

"This sobering incident might have caused the accused to reflect and be deterred from his plan but, insteadthe accused used the Dewani murder as a template for the sort of murderer that he was seeking to recruit."

Ghumman will be sentenced on Thursday. He met Rhind in London in March 2009 and harassed her until her father, Phillip Rhind, intervened.

He was arrested in Cape Town in January last year after he threw a petrol bomb at the home of Rhind' s parents in Clifton and slashed the tyres of their car, causing about R50000 damage .

The state claimed Ghumman wanted to kill Phillip Rhind while he was in South Africa to prevent him from attending his appeal hearing in London on January 27 last year, and that he planned the crimes meticulously, posing as a London-based freelance photojournalist.