The owner of a white South African farm and two employees face the murder of two black women who prosecutors said they were shot dead in August last year and a trial that included pigs being fed.
The woman was allegedly killed by 60-year-old Zakaria Olivier, his worker, Adrian de Wett, 19, and 45-year-old foreigner William Musolo.
The man appeared at the Limpopopolokwane High Court in northern Limpopo Province on Monday, a regional spokesman for the South African National Prosecutor’s Office (NPA) told CNN.
The trio “faces two counts of murder, attempted murder, three counts that defeat the end of justice, possession of firearms and ammunition,” the NPA said in a previous statement.
Musoro, described by police as “illegal immigrants,” was further charged with “violation section of the illegal immigration law,” a police statement said.
They were not asked to enter the petition before the hearing was shifted Thursday, said Mashdu Marabi Dizungi, a spokesman for the Limpopo NPA.
On August 20, 2024, police said, “The man was arrested after the body of a pig was found decomposed among the pigs on a farm in Severen, on the outskirts of Mankwen.
“The investigation began on August 17th (2024) when a 45-year-old South African woman went missing after visiting the farm. “Both women were injured by bullets and a 47-year-old foreign man with them” fled, but “we were shot dead and hospitalized.”
Survivors told reporters that one of the murdered women was his wife. The other women were their neighbors. They were on the farm to collect expired and abandoned dairy products, he said.
Many South Africans who were furious at the murders are hoping for justice from their victims.
Similar murders have been recorded in South Africa in recent years. In Mpumalanga, four men, including a 24-year-old farm manager, face accusations of murder and temptation, allegedly killing and burning the bodies of three people accused of stealing sheep in August last year, the NPA said.
In 2019, the South African High Court served two white farmers long sentences for a 16-year-old teenager from a moving truck in Coliny, northwest state, to two white farmers for allegedly stealing sunflowers. However, the man was acquitted by the High Court two years later, and he overturned the sentence, citing his lack of evidence.
Violent crimes are spreading in South Africa’s more than 60 million South African countries, where around 20,000 murders were recorded between April and December last year, police data show.
Farm murders involving both white and black South Africans account for a small portion of about 0.2% of those killings, despite the widespread claims of genocide against white farmers by white nationalist groups.
