'Lion killer' has to pay fine
2008-02-27 16:05
Sydney Masinga
Barberton - Mark Scott-Crossley has not yet paid a R4 000 fine for assaulting a fellow prisoner.
He is currently serving a prison sentence for taking part in the murder of Nelson Chisale, a labourer who was killed and fed to lions.
Scott-Crossley was charged with assaulting a fellow inmate, Jacobus Cordier, 40, at the Barberton maximum security prison on December 9 2006.
On Thursday last week the Barberton Magistrate's Court found him guilty of assault and sentenced him to a fine of R4 000 or two years in prison.
He opted to pay the fine, but according to a prison official, who asked not to be named because he is afraid of Scott-Crossley, the fine had not been paid yet.
"I am sure he will pay because he wants to be released on parole for the Chisale case," said the official on Wednesday.
Cordier, who was serving a ten-year sentence for car theft, had head injuries and had to be released from prison because he was left partially paralysed following the assault.
Scott-Crossley pleaded not guilty to assault, saying he acted in self-defence when Cordier threatened him with a sharpened spoon.
He has successfully appealed against his life sentence for the murder of Chisale.
Last year, the Supreme Court of Appeals in Bloemfontein reduced Scott-Crossley's sentence to five years on a lesser charge of being an accessory, after the fact, to murder.
He has been in jail since 2005.
Skull and bones
Three judges in the Supreme Court of Appeals found that the high court prosecutors had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Scott-Crossley had taken part in the murder.
Chisale was killed in Hoedspruit, Limpopo, in January 2004.
Scott-Crossley's co-accused in the Chisale case, Simon Mathebula, is serving 15 years in jail for the murder. They were both sentenced on October 1 last year.
A third accused died before his trial was completed.
Chisale's skull and some gnawed bones were all that remained after the body was thrown to three white lions at the Mokwalo lion-breeding project.
Scott-Crossley had recently fired Chisale from his construction business at Engedi game farm. Chisale had been helping to build a lodge on the farm before being fired. He was killed when he returned to collect some of his belongings.
- African Eye