{"id":35341,"date":"2017-06-26T13:20:40","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T13:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/south-africa-moves-coffin-assault-case-to-high\/"},"modified":"2017-06-26T13:20:48","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T13:20:48","slug":"south-africa-moves-coffin-assault-case-to-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/south-africa-moves-coffin-assault-case-to-high\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa moves ‘coffin’ assault case to high court"},"content":{"rendered":"

{The trial of two white farmers accused of forcing a black South African into a coffin and threatening to douse him in petrol and burn him alive has been moved to a high court.}<\/p>\n

Willem Oosthuizen and Theo Martins Jackson are alleged to have threatened to put a snake into the coffin with Victor Mlotshwa when he resisted.<\/p>\n

The trial in Mpumalanga province is now due to take place at the end of July.<\/p>\n

The accused are expected to enter an official plea then.<\/p>\n

Proceedings had been scheduled at a regional court in Middelburg on Monday, but have been switched to 31 July – 10 August in the nearby town of Delmas.<\/p>\n

The men are charged with kidnapping and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and attempted murder.<\/p>\n

They were arrested after video of the alleged incident was posted on YouTube.<\/p>\n

In sworn statements in a previous appearance, the men said they had wanted to teach Mr Mlotshwa a lesson for trespassing on their farm but meant him no harm.
\nBut a magistrate said the farmers had been sadistic and racist.<\/p>\n

Mr Mlotshwa only reported the matter after footage of the alleged assault in August 2016 emerged months later.<\/p>\n

The 20-second video, shot on 17 August, was circulated on social media and caused outrage.<\/p>\n

It shows a white man forcing a black man inside a coffin, and threatening to pour petrol over him and set it alight.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg said the video had highlighted racial tensions in some communities here, with allegations that abuse at the hands of farmers was common.<\/p>\n

This case has been a reminder for some that racism did not end with apartheid and in small communities, change comes at a slow pace – if at all, she said.<\/p>\n

\"Theo<\/figure>\n

Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The trial of two white farmers accused of forcing a black South African into a coffin and threatening to douse him in petrol and burn him alive has been moved to a high court.} Willem Oosthuizen and Theo Martins Jackson are alleged to have threatened to put a snake into the coffin with Victor Mlotshwa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-35341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35341"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=35341"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=35341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}