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August 22, 2008 3:54 PM
by Serena Chaudhry
JOHANNESBURG - A white South African farmer who
was sentenced to life imprisonment for feeding a black worker
to a pack of lions was released on parole today after
serving three years in jail, the SAPA news agency reported.
The case caused an outcry in South Africa, where more than
a decade after the end of apartheid rule, some white farmers
are still accused of abusing and exploiting black workers.
Mark Scott-Crossley was given life by Phalaborwa Circuit
Court in the Limpopo province in 2005 for assaulting former
employee Nelson Chisale and then throwing him to a pack of
lions.
Little more than Chisale's skull, shards of bone and a
finger were found at an enclosure for rare white lions,
In September last year, the Supreme Court of Appeal set
aside Scott-Crossley's murder conviction and gave him a
five-year sentence after finding that the prosecution had not
proved that Chisale was alive when he was thrown to the lions.
A prison service official, Sarie Peens, said Scott-Crossley
was taken from a prison in Barberton, where he was
serving his sentence, and admitted to a reintegration office at
Bushbuckridge.
"He is now being placed under strict conditions on parole
until completion of his sentence," Peens told SAPA.
While in jail, Scott-Crossley was found guilty of
assaulting a fellow inmate and ordered to pay a fine.
Scott-Crossley said he had acted in self-defence after the
inmate had threatened him with a sharpened spoon, SAPA
reported.
(Reuters Life!)
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