National
Mark Scott-Crossley denied bail for alleged racist attack─── 12:57 Fri, 10 Feb 2017
Tzaneen - Mark Scott-Crossley, who allegedly drove over a man in an apparent racist attack, was denied bail in the Lenyenye Magistrate’s Court on Friday.
The case was postponed to March 24 for further investigation, police spokesperson Brigadier Motlafela Mojapelo said.
Mojapelo said members of the community had protested outside court, while public order police officers monitored the situation.
Scott-Crossley launched a bail application after he handed himself over to police in connection with the alleged attack on Silence Mabunda, 37, in December.
Mabunda, a general worker at the Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, said Scott-Crossley attacked him at a shop in Hoedspruit while he was buying airtime.
Murder conviction
He allegedly hurled racial slurs at Mabunda and broke his cellphone before he allegedly ran Mabunda over with his car.
Mabunda now struggles to walk without assistance.
Scott-Crossley handed himself to police in Pretoria on January 18 after a warrant for his arrest was issued on December 21.
At his last court appearance, he was seeking to be released on bail because he wanted to continue managing his farm near Hoedspruit.
In April 2005, the Phalaborwa Circuit Court found him and his employee Simon Mathebula guilty of the murder of Nelson Chisale on January 31, 2004.
They attacked him with machetes and threw him into a lion enclosure at the Mokwalo White Lion project.
He was sentenced to life in jail in September 2005. Mathebula got 15 years, three of which were suspended.
On September 28, 2007, the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein set aside Scott-Crossley’s murder conviction.
It substituted five years’ imprisonment, on the lesser offence of being an accessory after the fact, for his life sentence.
Scott-Crossley was released on parole in August 2008.
