Trial date set for speaker Thandi Modise's animal cruelty case
Image: Trevor Samson/Business Day
A trial date has been set for National Assembly speaker Thandi Modise’s animal cruelty case.
Modise appeared briefly in the Potchefstroom regional court on Wednesday. Her case was postponed to between March 24 and 26, provisionally for trial.
“The speaker will have to get her calendar for the state of the nation address (Sona) so she can confirm if the arranged dates are suitable,” said AfriForum spokesperson Elias Maangwale.
He said the postponement was agreed to by both the private prosecution and Modise’s legal counsel.
Her appearance dates back to the discovery of the carcasses of more than 50 pigs and other animals on her farm at Modderfontein, North West, in 2014.
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) inspectors found scores of dead animals including chickens, geese and sheep. About 162 animals were euthanised because of their poor condition.
Modise said at the time that her farm manager had left to tend to a family emergency. But the Sunday Times reported that the sole worker taking care of the farm had left the animals to die because he and his family themselves faced starvation if they stayed there.
Modise is being prosecuted privately by advocate Gerrie Nel, head of AfriForum’s private prosecution unit, acting on behalf of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA).
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had earlier declined to prosecute.
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