WHITE farmers who filmed themselves forcing a black man into a coffin and threatening to burn him alive have been found guilty of attempted murder.
Willem Oosthuizen and Theo Jackson, both 29, pleaded not guilty to kidnap, assault, attempted murder and possession of a firearm over the incident last year in the province of Mpumalanga in South Africa.
Terrified Victor Mlotshwa, a labourer, begs for his life in the sickening footage.
The footage shows Mr Mlotshwa with his hands clasped together in prayer and whimpering and screaming is forced into the coffin and the lid is closed down over him.
One of his attackers is seen pressing the lid down with his foot as his victim screams in terror believing the pair who caught walking on their farm were about to pour petrol in.
They were also caught on video they took themselves of threatening to throw a snake in with him.
“Please don’t kill me,” Mlotshwa begged the men while in the coffin, according to the Times Live website.
“Why shouldn’t we, when you are killing our farm?” one replied.
"For attempted murder of Mr (Victor) Mlotshwa, I hereby find you both guilty," judge Segopotje Mphahlele told the accused, before supporters of the victim burst out in celebration songs in the courtroom.
The two accused claimed that they had caught Mlotshwa with stolen copper cables on private property and wanted to scare him by placing him in the coffin so he would never return.
The new footage caused shock in the court, with many in the public gallery in tears and some forced to leave in distress.
An onlooker who claimed to be a member of the ruling ANC party said outside the court:"Life behind bars for white racists will not be easy.
"They may be now wishing it was them in the coffin".
Activists from political parties, including the ruling African National Congress and the main opposition Democratic Alliance have rallied outside court and attended each day of the trial.
Mr Mlotshwa broke down in tears many times during his evidence.
South Africa is beset by deep-rooted racial inequality 23 years after the end of white-minority rule and cases of racism have erupted regularly causing outrage on social media recently.
At an earlier hearing he told the packed courtroom: “Accused Number 2 (Jackson) opened the coffin and told me to get into it. Accused Number 1 (Oosthuizen) told me he would shoot me if I ran away.
“I refused to get into the coffin and they both assaulted me with their fists all over my body.
“Accused Number 2 went to his bakkie (pick-up truck) and came with a knobkerrie (short wooden African fighting stick) and also hit me with it all over the body.
“I was so scared and I kept asking them what was happening but none of them answered me. I then thought it better to get into the coffin as I could no longer endure the pain.
“But my upper body remained outside the coffin so accused Number 1 kicked and pressed me into the coffin with his foot. He had a gun around his waist.
"I was so scared."
The two accused deny assaulting Mr Mlotshwa and say that they were only trying to frighten him after they caught him trespassing on their land and threatened to take him to the police.
The claim Mr Mlotshwa threatened to burn their farm and crops and kill their wives and children so they decided to put him into the coffin to scare him into not carrying out the threats
Mr Wayne Gibbs, defending Oosthuizen, told the court: “The accused would argue that they never beat you or kicked you at all. They only put you in the coffin and stepped on the lid.”
Mr Mlotshwa denied making any threats to the two farmers.
The state presented the two minute video to the court which has been released to the local media. In the video they are heard asking him if he wants to die slow or fast.
In one clip one of them men says in Afrikaans when Mr Mlotshwa denies theft: “You are talking s***".
“Please don’t kill me” pleads Mr Mlotshwa and gets the reply: “You are killing my farm, why can’t we kill you?”
One of the men is also heard threatening to “put a snake in” as the young man whimpers in terror. The threats are made throughout the video in Afrikaans and Zulu.
As the video played many in the court wept and others left and threats were made to the defendants who have spent eight months in custody awaiting trial mainly for their own protection.
The assault took place at the JM de Beer Boerdry farm in Mpumulanga province in August last year but the arrests were only made two months later when the footage went viral.
Defending Oosthuizen, advocate Wayne Gibbs said:”He thought it would be an opportunity to scare Mlotshwa to not steal and to not carry out the threats that he had made”.
Both men showed no remorse in the trial in which it was said black people suspected of theft on the farm had been put in the coffin before and threatened as a means of scaring them off the land.
Farm owner Mr De Beer denied he had ever used the coffin to terrorise thieves at his farm.
Advocate Org Basson for Jackson also put it to Mr de Beer that it was common knowledge that the coffin had been used before to scare thieves but he again denied it.
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