Hitting lion murder victim Nelson Chisale with pangas was not part of the job description of Richard Mathebula and Simon Mathebula, their former employer Mark Scott-Crossley told the Phalaborwa Circuit Court on Wednesday.
Scott-Crossley and the Mathebulas are on trial for Chisale’s murder.
Their job had been to keep the farmhouse, swimming pool and boma clean, to do odd jobs and once a week patrol the perimeter of the farm checking for snares and holes in the fence.
What they did to Chisale was ”definitely” out of their scope of employment, Scott-Crossley told the court under cross-examination by Simon’s lawyer, Mduduzi Thabede.
Scott-Crossley and the Mathebulas have pleaded not guilty to murdering Chisale, who was fed to lions in Hoedspruit after being viciously beaten on the Scott-Crossley smallholding on January 31 last year.
”I would assume you would have a problem with an employee who does work that is not within their scope,” Thabede put it to Scott-Crossley.
”If you call hitting someone with a panga work, I don’t want a job like that,” he responded.
Scott-Crossley agreed he had terminated the services of Chisale after he ”did things out of the scope of his employment”, but told the court this could not be compared with what the Mathebulas had done.
”[They] beat someone with a panga. Nelson didn’t come to work. It’s totally different.”
Thabede put it to him that the reason he would not terminate their services was ”because they acted within their scope of practice”.
”Definitely not,” retorted Scott-Crossley.
The ”scuffle” Chisale became involved in on the smallholding on the day of his death was a matter between adult males and ”did not relate to the work environment. I did not want to get involved,” he said.
”What they did … would that not warrant termination of employment?” asked Judge George Maluleke, hearing the case with assessors Kate Choshi and Elphus Seemela.
”A person kills someone on your farm and blames you and intimidates you and you don’t fire him?” he further asked.
”In the afternoon, I had a choice. I could have terminated them. I didn’t. After the evening’s occurrences, I had no choice,” said Scott-Crossley, who has claimed that he and his son were threatened if they did not help dispose of Chisale’s body.
”Are you saying you’d have loved to have terminated their services had it not been for the threats to you?” asked Thabede.
”Yes, that’s right,” Scott-Crossley responded.
However, he conceded he had associated himself with the events surrounding Chisale even before the threats, when he found Chisale dead in a bathroom on his property.
”I felt I was part of it now. The man’s in my bathroom and he’s dead,” he said.
He denied Thabede’s contention that he had posed the question ”What now?” to former co-accused Robert Mnisi — who has since turned state witness — because he, Scott-Crossley, was party to what had happened. — Sapa