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/ 21 October 2005
A baby elephant was euthanised in Hammanskraal on Thursday when its organs failed almost a month after it was severely burnt in a wildfire at the Pilanesberg National Park in September. The elephant was the fourth put down because of the severity of its injuries. Two burnt elephants died shortly after being taken to the trauma centre.
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/ 30 September 2005
There were gasps in the public gallery as Mark Scott-Crossley, one of the men who threw farmworker Nelson Chisale to lions at Hoedspruit in January last year, was sentenced on Friday to life imprisonment. His co-accused, Simon Mathebula, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, three of them suspended for five years.
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/ 30 September 2005
Convicted killer Mark Scott-Crossley was married in the Phalaborwa Magistrate’s Court on Friday ahead of his sentencing for the murder of farmworker Nelson Chisale. Meanwhile, the community of Phalaborwa wants for life sentences for Chisale’s killers, people said as they crowded the doors of the circuit court.
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/ 29 September 2005
Mark Scott-Crossley, who threw a man to lions to die, was not a bad person, the Phalaborwa Circuit Court heard on Thursday. ”He [Scott-Crossley] has got good attributes,” his counsel Johann Engelbrecht SC told Justice George Maluleke.
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/ 28 September 2005
The community of Acornhoek has evicted the family of Simon Mathebula, who was found guilty in April of killing farm worker Nelson Chisale, the Phalaborwa Circuit Court heard on Wednesday. Mathebula was convicted in April of acting in concert with Mark Scott-Crossley in committing the premeditated murder of Chisale, who was thrown to lions.
The media have concentrated on his bad deeds but ignored his good actions, convicted murderer Mark Scott-Crossley told the Phalaborwa Circuit Court on Thursday. Reporters at the court have seen a man ”who now and again reacted irresponsibly”, he said in evidence in mitigation of sentence.
He has been found guilty of a crime he did not commit, Simon Mathebula told the Phalaborwa Circuit Court on Wednesday during deliberations on the sentence he should receive for tossing farmworker Nelson Chisale to lions in Hoedspruit last year. ”I did not even see the corpse … of the deceased,” Mathebula said.
Mark Scott-Crossley has a previous conviction for theft, the Phalaborwa Circuit Court heard on Tuesday while considering his sentence for throwing farmworker Nelson Chisale to lions last year. Accomplice Simon Mathebula has a clean record, prosecutor Ivy Thenga told the court.
Squatters in Marlboro, Johannesburg, have vowed to fight any new attempts to evict them from the abandoned factories where they have lived in squalor for as long as seven years. They held off the sheriff’s ”Red Ants” workers on Monday with burning barricades at the intersections of roads leading to the area.
The worst thing for South Africa is to have a failed or rogue state for a neighbour, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel said on Thursday. Manuel was addressing University of the Witwatersrand students, who peppered him with questions about Zimbabwe.