Two white South African farmers were acquitted on Friday (November 27th) on appeal for the 2017 murder of a black teenager they suspected of stealing sunflowers, a tragedy that sparked riots in the remote North West region.
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Found guilty at first instance, Pieter Doorewaard and Philip Schutte were sentenced in March 2019 to 18 years and 23 years respectively for the murder and kidnapping of Mathlomola Mosweu, 15, whom they said they had caught stealing. plants near the village of Coligny (north-west).
Released on bail eight months later, they appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal which ruled in their favor on Friday, ruling that the prosecution had not demonstrated their guilt "
beyond a reasonable doubt
".
"
The two defendants are declared not guilty and acquitted
", according to the judgment of the Court.
The teenager died after a fall from a vehicle driven by the two men, which broke his neck.
The two defendants have always claimed that the teenager had jumped from the truck while they were driving him to the police station.
But the lower court found Philip Schutte guilty of having intentionally thrown him out of the vehicle.
The tragedy had sent shock waves through this rural region.
Coligny had been the scene of riots and looting of stores belonging to whites.
More than a quarter of a century after the end of the apartheid regime, which for decades separated the black majority from the white minority, racial tensions persist in South Africa, especially in agricultural areas.
