Fugitive Mark Scott-Crossley arrested

Mark Scott-Crossley‚ who was on the run from police‚ has been arrested in Pretoria.

He has been wanted for questioning in connection with an attack on a wildlife employee‚ who was run over with a 4x4 vehicle in Hoedspruit in December.

Limpopo police spokesman Brigadier Motlafela Mojapelo confirmed that Scott-Crossley was arrested after he was handed over to police in Pretoria by his lawyer on Wednesday.

Scott-Crossley‚ who served time for being an accessory after the fact to the murder of a former worker who was thrown into a lions’ den‚ is wanted in connection with a case of attempted murder.

Mojapelo said detectives were currently driving from Limpopo to Pretoria to collect Scott- Crossley‚ who was released in 2008 on parole.

“He will appear in court soon in connection with the attempted murder of Innocent Mabunda. The suspect is alleged to have knocked him over with his car in Hoedspruit. He then apparently reversed over Mabunda as well.”

Police are investigating a complaint that a man alleged to be Scott-Crossley accosted Mabunda outside a restaurant.

“It was during the alleged assault‚ that the suspect grabbed Mabunda’s cellphone from him [Mabunda] and threw it to the ground. The suspect then went to his car and allegedly used it to drive over Mabunda.”

Scott-Crossley was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2005 after he and two of his farm employees threw a former farm worker‚ Nelson Chisale‚ into a lion enclosure. He appealed his life sentence at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein and his murder conviction was set aside and substituted with five years’ imprisonment.

The court found the prosecution had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Chisale was alive when he was thrown into the enclosure. Scott-Crossley was released on parole in August 2008 and returned to his Hoedspruit farm.

TMG Digital/The Times