A white farmer convicted of feeding one of his black workers to lions was jailed for life by a South African judge today.

Mark Scott-Crossley, 37, a white building contractor, and farm labourer Simon Mathebula, 43, were found guilty in April of murdering Nelson Chisale, whose bloodied remains were found last year in an enclosure for rare white lions near the Kruger National Park. Little more than his skull, shards of bone and a finger were recovered.

The incident was apparently sparked by a dispute between the deceased and his then employer Scott-Crossley.

The grisly killing of 41-year-old Mr Chisale provoked an outcry in South Africa where, more than a decade after the end of apartheid rule, some white farmers are still accused of abusing and exploiting black workers. Protesters demanding life sentences for Scott-Crossley and his co-accused have picketed some sittings of the court.

The state also called for life imprisonment for both men, citing the exceptionally gruesome nature of the crime that took place on January 31, 2004 near Hoedspruit, in north-east South Africa. But although Judge George Maluleke of the Phalaborwa circuit court sentenced Scott-Crossley to life imprisonment, he gave Mathebula 15 years, of which three years were suspended.

Scott-Crossley, who minutes earlier married one of his prison visitors at a nearby courthouse, showed no emotion as the sentence was read out at the hearing.

"We did expect a heavy sentence," he told journalists following the sentencing. "We are sorry that the family didn’t accept our offer of financial compensation. It was not an effort to try and bribe them, but we really feel sorry for them, and we are going to fight the sentence."

About 100 people packed in the courtroom cheered and ululated after the sentence was read, while Chisale’s niece Fetsang Jafta declared "I’m satisfied with the outcome."

During the trial that opened in Phalaborwa in January, a year after the murder, a judge heard that Chisale was savagely beaten with pangas at Engedi farm where he had returned to collect his belongings, two months after being fired for apparently running a personal errand during work hours.

Chisale was tied to a tree and later loaded onto a pick-up truck and driven to the Mokwale White Lion Project where he was thrown over a fence into a lion camp.

Farm worker Robert Mnisi, who was accused along with Scott-Crossley and Mathebula but later turned state witness, testified that he heard Chisale scream as the lions devoured his body.

A third accused, Richard Mathebula, who is apparently suffering from tuberculosis, will face trial separately due to ill health.

The start of the sentencing hearing was delayed for 30 minutes as Scott-Crossley tied the knot with Sim Strydom, whom he met just a few weeks ago when she visited him in prison, adding an unexpected twist to the saga.

Before handing down the sentence, judge Maluleke said his ruling was based on the severity of the crime and not on the presumption that it was a racist killing.

"The racial undertones in this case did not play a role in the conviction," Maluleke said. "It will also not play a role in the sentencing."

Membathisi Mdladlana, the Labour Minister, had expressed his "shock" and"anger" over the murder while the main labour federation said that the killing showed that many farmers treat black workers today as badly as they did during apartheid.

In one particularly brutal incident, a white farmer in eastern South Africa was sentenced to 25 years in 2001 for killing a black employee by tying a rope around his neck and dragging him along a gravel road behind a pick-up truck.

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