Coffin case uproar
Tension as two appear in court in assault case
ONE of two men accused of assaulting and forcing a farm worker inside a coffin and threatening to kill him in Mpumalanga was described by his fellow workers yesterday as a humorous individual.
“He loves joking and telling humorous stories,” a farm worker at the JM de Beer Boerdery farm, near the Komati Power Station, said.
“We were shocked to find out that he has been accused of this.
“I guess he has always been a racist but he was hiding it.”
He was describing Theo Martins who works at the farm as a foreman.
Martins and co-accused Willem Oosthuizen appeared briefly yesterday in the Middelburg Magistrate’s Court for a bail application.
But the two abandoned the bid over security concerns.
Oosthuizen and Jackson allegedly beat up Victor Rethabile Mlotshwa for walking through a farm.
They then took him to another location and put him in a coffin and threatened to kill him.
The pair face charges of kidnapping and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
Workers at the farm, about 37km from Middelburg, said the last time they had seen Martins was a week ago.
The workers said they had heard about the incident from the farm’s owner.
The workers then saw the video on social media and were shocked.
After the court proceedings, Mlotshwa recalled his ordeal, saying he had been walking on a footpath minding his own business when two men attacked him. “They told me that I was trespassing and that is when they started to beat me up,” he said. “They tied me up. “I could not do anything because these guys had a gun.”
Shortly after the court adjourned, Mlotshwa’s mother had to be taken to hospital.
The court case also turned into a political affair, with EFF, DA and ANC representatives singing struggle songs outside as a heavy police presence kept the groups apart.
“It is only when the EFF put a spotlight on them, then police acted,” EFF member Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said
The case was postponed tp January 25 for further investigation