Cape Town — A white South African farmer and two of his workers were in court on Friday accused of murdering two black women and feeding their remains to pigs, shocking the country.
Zachariah Olivier, 60, and workers Andrian De Wet, 19, and William Musora, 45, a Zimbabwean national, are facing murder charges after the decomposing bodies were discovered in a pigsty on a farm in the northern province of Limpopo on August 20.
Police began investigating after 44-year-old Maria Makgatho was reported missing after visiting the farm on August 17. She was accompanied by Locadia Ndlovu, a Zimbabwean national aged 35.
The trio was arrested on August 21.
#FarmMurders The Limpopo, Onvervaght farmer, Zachariah Johannes Olivier, and his two employees, Andrian Rudolph de Wet and William Musora, are today appearing in Mankweng Magistrates Court for possible bail applications.
They allegedly shot, killed, and fed two women to pigs.… pic.twitter.com/nA05jfVRWj
— CapricornFM News (@CapricornFMNews) August 30, 2024
It is alleged that a food truck dumped “potentially expired goods, prompting the deceased… to trespass onto the farm to collect these goods,” the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said in a statement.
The accused “allegedly fired several shots at the victims, resulting in the deaths of the two women and injuries to a surviving male individual,” the NPA said.
The man crawled to the main road and managed to get help, it said.
Dozens protested outside the magistrate’s court at Mankweng, a town about 350 kilometres (217 miles) northeast of Johannesburg, to demand that the accused be refused bail.
The case was postponed to September 10 and the accused would remain in custody, the NPA said.
[WATCH] The bail application for a farmer and his two employees, who face charges for the murders of two women in Limpopo, has been postponed to September 10. #Newzroom405 pic.twitter.com/snWVt4AjdW
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) August 30, 2024
The killings caused outrage in South Africa, which suffers from a high crime rate with homicides among the highest in the world.
The women’s wing of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party said it was “horrified and outraged” and called for “decisive action to curb the violence against women”.
The main opposition uMkhonto weSizwe party said it “condemns… the atrocious murder of two black women by racist white farmers”.
Police figures released on Friday showed that nearly 6 200 people were murdered in South Africa between April and June this year, a 0.5-percent decrease over the same period a year earlier.
#Newzroom405‘s @sholwana_z speaks to NPA regional spokesperson Mashudu Malabi about today’s proceedings in the Mankweng Magistrate’s Court. Zachariah Olivier, Adriaan de Wet and William Musoro stand accused of murdering two women and disposing of their bodies in a pigsty. pic.twitter.com/2P6Ivdi1bz
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) August 30, 2024
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Source: AFP
Picture: X/@kimheller3
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