A WHITE South African who beat up one of his black workers and fed him to lions was jailed for life yesterday.

Mark Scott-Crossley, 37, a building contractor, was found guilty in April of murdering Nelson Chisale, whose remains were discovered near the Kruger National Park in February last year.

Scott-Crossley, who began yesterday by marrying one of his recent prison visitors in a nearby courthouse, showed no emotion as the sentence was read out.

He told reporters outside the court in Phalaborwa that he had expected a heavy sentence, but that he would appeal. “We are sorry that the [victim’s] 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.”

Simon Mathebula, a black farmworker, was sent to prison for 15 years for his part in the murder. State prosecutors had sought life imprisonment for both men.

Fetsang Jafta, Mr Chisale’s niece, said that she was satisfied with the sentence, which drew cheers and ululations from the public in the packed courtroom and the demonstrators who had gathered outside.

During the three-month trial this year, the court was told that Mr Chisale, 41, had been sacked by Scott-Crossley late in 2003 for running a personal errand during work hours.

When Mr Chisale returned to the farm to collect his personal belongings two months later, he was attacked with pangas (machetes) by farmworkers.

He was tied to a tree, tossed on to the back of a pick-up truck and thrown over a fence into the Mokwale White Lion Project, near Hoedspruit, 250 miles northeast of Johannesburg.

Police later recovered his skull, pieces of leg and his bloodstained clothing.

Scott-Crossley claimed that the victim was dead when his body was thrown to the lions and that he was covering up for the assault by his employees. But his three co-accused men denied this, saying that they were acting on orders from their boss, who had taken part in the beating.

One of the defendants, who became a witness for the State, said that he had heard screams from Mr Chisale as he was torn apart by the lions.

The case highlighted the abuse of farmworkers across South Africa, where most of the arable land still belongs to whites.

The main labour union said that the murder showed that black workers were being treated as badly as in the days of apartheid, which ended 11 years ago.

Before passing sentence yesterday, Judge George Maluleke said that his ruling was based solely on the brutal nature of the crime and not the colour of the accused.

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

A third accused man, who is ill, will be tried separately.

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