A security guard was too far from where Nelson Chisale was being assaulted to save him, the Phalaborwa Circuit Court — trying three men accused of feeding Chisale to lions — heard on Tuesday.
He also had no phone to call for help, Forget Tsaku Ndlovu testified before Judge George Maluleke and two assessors.
”I would have thought you’d be concerned that somebody you’d allowed on to the farm was being assaulted,” defence advocate Duduzi Thabede put it to him.
”Yes, I was concerned to a certain extent, but there was nothing I could do at that stage because I was busy with my work,” Ndlovu said.
Mark Scott-Crossley (37), Richard ”Doctor” Mathebula (41) and Simon Mathebula (43), not related to each other, have all pleaded not guilty to murdering Chisale (41) on January 31 last year.
Chisale was allegedly beaten with a panga, tied to a tree, then shoved to the ground, kicked in the head and threatened with a rifle before being loaded on to a bakkie and thrown over a fence into an encampment at Mokwalo White Lion Project, near Hoedspruit.
He had gone to fetch pots he had left at the Scott-Crossley farm after being dismissed in November 2003.
The first he heard of the assault was from Simon Mathebula, Ndlovu repeated under cross-examination on Tuesday. He denied telling police Mathebula’s hands were covered with blood when he came to him at the farm gate. It was the sleeves of his work jacket that were bloodied, together with his hat, he told the court.
Later, domestic worker Thuly Siwela came to him and told him she had tried to pull Richard and Simon Mathebula off Chisale — to no avail.
Ndlovu did not know how far from the gate the assault took place, and could not estimate a distance. There were bushes in the way, he said.
Picketers outside the court who sporadically chanted and toyi-toyied throughout Monday’s proceedings were back on Tuesday in such full voice that the judge’s clerk had to go outside to ask them to ”keep it down”.
Inside the courtroom, spectators sat glued to their seats, unwilling to get up even during the tea break lest someone else take their place after the morning’s jostle for seats.
With standing room only in the court when the trial started on Monday, people queued outside from early on Tuesday morning to be assured of a place as the case entered its second day. At the gate, guards searched all who entered, using hand-held metal detectors.
Listening to the trial for a second day was Chisale’s sister, Johanna, a reserved figure in the public gallery — directly behind the dock holding the accused — wearing her distinctive white headdress and a lilac blouse.
The case continues. — Sapa