What a Cruel Way
Monday, January 31st, 2005 at 12:46 pm · 9 views
…to get rid of your enemy:
PHALABORWA, South Africa (AP) — A decaying finger helped forensics experts identify a farmworker allegedly thrown to lions by his former employer, a packed court heard Monday.
Police reconstructive technician Inspector Teunis Briers testified how he was able to take a print from the finger found in a lion breeding enclosure along with other remains and torn clothing. Police fingerprint expert Hugo Coetzee testified that he then matched the print to Nelson Chisale’s identification records.
The print had not changed despite the finger being badly decomposed.
Farm owner Mark Scott-Crossley and co-defendants Richard Mathebula, 41, and Simon Mathebula, 43, who are not related, are charged with killing Chisale last January.
Prosecutors allege that the defendants attacked Chisale with machetes, tied him up, beat him and threw him into a pen of lions. Police said Scott-Crossley had fired Chisale and Chisale was attacked when he returned to retrieve belongings.
Earlier Monday, police brought in sniffer dogs to sweep the court for possible explosives. Police did not say whether they had received a bomb threat.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/01/31/lion.trial.ap/index.html
