Victim already dead when fed to lions, says accused

JOHANNESBURG - A white South African farmer accused of feeding a black former worker to lions told a court yesterday he had just helped three of his staff dispose of the body of the victim, having walked away from a dispute.

Mark Scott-Crossley and two of his labourers, Richard and Simon Mathebula, are accused of killing 41-year-old former employee Nelson Chisale.

Little more than Chisale's skull, a few bones and a finger were found in an enclosure for rare white lions early last year.

The three defendants have denied the charges.

Scott-Crossley told the court his co-accused had taken him to Chisale, who had been wounded and tied to a tree after returning to fetch belongings from the farm where he used to work.

The farmer testified that he sent his 12-year-old son to fetch an air-gun and threatened Chisale and told him not to come back to the farm, but that he had then walked away, telling the other workers to "sort it out", the South African Press Association reported.

Scott-Crossley told the court in Phalaborwa, in northeastern South Africa, he believed he showed his employees he was not happy with what they had done to Chisale, but that each of them was responsible for his own destiny.

Told later by farmworker Robert Mnisi, a co-accused who has since turned state witness, that there was trouble, Scott-Crossley said he returned to the staff quarters where the workers informed him Chisale was dead in the bathroom.

"He was lying on the floor. I tested for a pulse. There was none. I concluded he was dead," Scott-Crossley told the court. "[Mnisi] turned and said to me: 'Well, no body, no murder'. "

Scott-Crossley said Mnisi told him the farmer had a duty to help his employees, who would implicate him if they were caught.

The farmer said he realised he and his son were in trouble, and drove with Mnisi and Richard Mathebula to an encampment where there were lions.

"We climbed out," Scott-Crossley said. "That's when it became apparent that this was now going to happen. That [Chisale] was going to be thrown to the lions."

The post-mortem gave Chisale's cause of death as "being mauled by lions".

The case has provoked an outcry in South Africa where, a decade after the end of apartheid, some white farmers are still accused of abusing and exploiting black workers.

- REUTERS