Hide lion killers away - niece

2005-09-28 22:37

Phalaborwa - The killers of Nelson Chisale - thrown to lions to die - must be sent to jail and never seen again by the world, said his niece, Fetsang Jafta, in Phalaborwa Circuit Court on Wednesday.

She was giving evidence in aggravation of the sentences of Mark Scott-Crossley and Simon Mathebula.

She had been approached by Scott-Crossley's mother, Noreen Breeds, after sentence was passed.

"We were standing outside. She said she thought I'd be happy now (Scott-Crossley) had been found guilty...

"I said: 'That does not please me because you can still see him even though he has been found guilty and I'll never see my uncle'," she told the court.

Mathebula, 43, was convicted in April of acting in concert with Scott-Crossley, 37, in committing the premeditated murder of Chisale, 41.

Trial separated because of illness

Chisale was viciously assaulted before being thrown over a fence into an enclosure of lions at Mokwalo White Lion Project in Hoedspruit.

The trial of a third accused, Richard "Doctor" Mathebula, 41, was separated from that of Scott-Crossley and Mathebula, no relation, after he fell ill with suspected tuberculosis and was sent to hospital.

A fourth accused, Robert Mnisi, who turned State witness, has been indemnified against prosecution.

In evidence earlier on in the trial, the court heard that all that was found of Chisale was a shaft of long bones, a skull with no mandible, fragments of rib, vertebrae, a pelvic girdle, a finger, his shredded shirt and ripped khaki trousers.

Chisale's remains were buried at his birthplace at Maboloka village, in Brits, North West, last March, after a court found that the dignity of his family outweighed the right of his killers to a fair trial.

This followed an urgent application by the defence to stop the funeral so a forensic pathologist could perform tests on his bones to determine the time and cause of his death.

Jafta said she had gone for psychotherapy after identifying him from his bones, she told the court.

Chisale's common-law wife, Maureen Mubeje, and his three children - of 18, 13 and eight years old - had not.

The family was surviving on a R170 government grant for the youngest child.

Now that their father was dead, the children cried every time they heard about the court case. The eldest was not doing well at school.

Offered to help with children

Jafta agreed with Johann Engelbrecht SC that Scott-Crossley's father, Paul, had approached her after the case went to trial at the start of the year.

"They offered to help the children at school, feeding and such things. I said I would talk to the family and, anyway, we'd wait until the case is disposed of."

She was aware of, but had not attended, a meeting between Scott-Crossley's family and the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the SA Communist Party in an bid to start a process of ubuntu (compassion).

- SAPA