A farmer and two of his employees appeared in court in South Africa’s northeastern Limpopo province last week for the murder of two women whose remains they allegedly threw to the pigs, a case that shocked the entire country.
The three men are charged with murder following the discovery of two decomposing bodies in a pigsty on a farm in Limpopo province on August 20, according to police. On August 30, they were due to apply for bail, which has been postponed until September 10.
The motive for these crimes remains unclear. Police began investigating when a 45-year-old woman was reported missing following a visit to the farm on August 17. She was accompanied by another 35-year-old woman. “Both women had traces of gunshot wounds and a 47-year-old foreign national was also shot and hospitalized,” police said. According to press reports, the man was the husband of the younger woman.
Dozens of people demonstrated outside the court on Friday in Mankweng, in the Limpopo province 350 km from Johannesburg, to demand that the three men not be released on bail.
The three men were identified as farmer Zachariah Olivier, 60, and two employees Adriaan De Wet, 19, and William Musoro, 45. The murders shocked public opinion in South Africa, which has a high crime rate, including the highest number of homicides in the world.
South Africa recorded almost 6,200 murders between April and June, down 0.5% on the same period last year, according to police statistics released on Friday.