/ 25 October 2006

Anger as murder charges dropped against farmers

Four people accused of killing a suspected thief on a farm in South Africa, who died after being tied to a tree and beaten, walked free from court on Wednesday after murder charges were dropped.

After a magistrate ordered that charges of murder be downgraded, the four all pleaded guilty to assault and were each fined R10 000 .

The father of the 35-year-old black victim reacted furiously to the verdict, pointing out that three of the four accused were white, while prosecutors immediately announced their intention to appeal.

The charge sheet had accused the four men — farmers Gerhardt Vorster and Jacobus Botha, security guard Johannes Badenhorst and farm worker Lucky Manenzhe — of killing Allan Rapatsa by smashing his head against a tree stump and whipping him on a farm in the northern Limpopo province in October last year.

The group was alleged to have hit him with ”open hands, fists, kicked him with boots, banged his head against the stump, pinched his ears and his private parts with a pair of pliers, and hit him with a sjambok”.

Rapatsa had been apprehended by the group on suspicion of stealing copper cables from the farm near the town of Tzaneen. The cables were never found on him.

After the attack, he was driven to hospital by the accused where doctors certified him brain dead. He died a day later.

Announcing the sentence, magistrate Vic Smit said that there was no evidence that the group had intended to kill Rapatsa.

”Although the victim was killed, there is no proof that the accused intended to kill him,” said Smit.

Smit also criticised the police investigation, saying that statements given by two different witnesses were contradictory.

The victim’s father, William Rapatsa, said the ruling was a travesty of justice.

”They were just let free. My heart is bleeding because the money they were fined cannot bring my son’s life back,” he said outside the court.

”Would it have been the same if a black person assaulted and killed the white farmer? No! He would have been sentenced to life. Our justice is unfair, but there is nothing I can do.”

Solomon Ngobeni, who presented the state’s case said that there would be an appeal against the outcome, and accused the magistrate of overstepping his brief by downgrading the charges.

”At this stage he [Smit] was not supposed to have dealt with the merits of the case,” he said outside the court. — Sapa-AFP