Mark Scott-Crossley, one of the men who threw a worker’s body to lions in Hoedspruit in 2004, is a free man, a correctional services spokesperson said on Thursday.
“His last day of parole was the 29th of September, so he is now a free man,” said spokesperson Sarie Peens.
Scott-Crossley’s August 2008 release on parole was met with outrage.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions charged at the time that those who were “rich and white” received preferential treatment.
His parole conditions included visits by correctional services officials at home and at work. He was also compelled to report to the correctional services offices and undertake community work.
In late 2005 Scott-Crossley was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Phalaborwa Circuit Court for assaulting and then throwing Nelson Chisale — a former employee — to the lions.
On September 28 2007 the Supreme Court of Appeals in Bloemfontein set aside Scott-Crossley’s murder conviction.
It substituted five years’ imprisonment on the lesser offence of being an accessory after the fact for his life sentence.
The court found the prosecution had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Chisale was alive when he was thrown into the enclosure. The court then ruled that Scott-Crossley would serve the remainder of his sentence for the lesser offence backdated to September 30 2005.
The case made headlines across the world when the murder occurred in January 2004.
Chisale’s skull and some gnawed bones were all that remained after the body was thrown to three white lions at the Mokwalo lion breeding project. – Sapa