The white owner of a construction company, initially sentenced to life in prison in 2005 for ordering that a black man be beaten and then thrown to a pack of lions, was released on Thursday on parole — a stunning turn in the notorious “lion’s den case” that left many South Africans enraged.
“It is clear from the poor working class, poor communities that those who are rich and white will continue to be treated differently than those who are poor,” a statement from the North West Congress of South African Trade Unions read.
Several other organizations issued similar words of protest.
Mark Scott-Crossley, the owner of the construction company, had been convicted of murder in the killing of a former worker, Nelson Chisale, in Limpopo Province.
South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, and the most monstrous killings are a staple of newspaper headlines.
Just this week, a 12th grader covered his face with black paint, donned a terrifying mask and sliced his schoolmates with a samurai sword, killing one, news media throughout the country reported.
But even in the nation’s relentless cavalcade of brutal crime, Scott-Crossley’s offense seemed sensational.
Chisale had been dismissed, and a judge found that when he returned to get pots and other belongings, his former boss ordered other workers to beat him with sticks and tie him to a tree before loading him into a pickup truck.
Chisale, 41, was then driven 16km to a game reserve and was tossed over a fence to a pride of rare white lions. Remains of his skull, gnawed bones and bloody clothing were all that was found.
The crime was seen by many as a throwback to the days of apartheid and grisly evidence of enduring racism in South Africa.
During Scott-Crossley’s trial, demonstrators from the South African Communist Party and the governing African National Congress chanted so loudly outside the courthouse that bailiffs were ordered to quiet them.
But though he and one of his workers were convicted of murder, a year later an appellate court reduced Scott-Crossley’s sentence from life to five years, agreeing that he might have ordered a beating but not necessarily a murder — and that Chisale already could have been dead before he was fed to the lions. The convicted worker is serving a 15-year prison sentence.
Three years have passed since Scott-Crossley was first locked up. He was taken on Thursday to Bushbuckridge, a settlement in Limpopo, said Sarie Peens, the area’s correctional services coordinator.
She told the South African Press Association that “strict conditions” of parole were placed on Scott-Crossley until his full sentence was completed, and that his family had come to greet him and presumably took him home.
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