WATCH: 'Please don't kill me' - Second video of coffin assault emerges
A second video of the so-called “coffin assault” has emerged and was played before the High Court sitting in Middelburg‚ Mpumalanga‚ on Thursday.
Prosecutor Robert Molokoane said he had received the footage on Monday from one of the accused‚ Theo Jackson.
The two-minute-long video showed the victim‚ Victor Mlotshwa, lying in the coffin while two men‚ alleged to be the co-accused‚ Jackson and Willem Oosthuizen‚ accuse him of stealing cable from their farm.
“Please don’t kill me‚” Mlotshwa is heard begging on the video.
“Why shouldn’t we when you are killing our farm?” one of the men is heard saying.
A visibly shaken Mlotshwa is seen pleading for forgiveness. He shrieks and wails as he forced to place his arms in the coffin.
One of the accused is then seen shoving Mlotshwa inside‚ pushing closed the lid of the coffin and stomping on it with his boot as Mlotshwa tries to lift his head up.
The video was played twice in the packed courtroom H‚ leaving almost everyone in the gallery in tears.
Several members of the public left the courtroom and one man angrily ordered two white men to move out of his way as he attempted to leave.
Sniffles could be heard along with gasps as the video played.
Mlotshwa himself failed to look at the video the first time it was shown.
He shifted his eyes from the large screen where the video was played and stared at the table in front of him.
The judge asked him whether he could look at the video and he agreed.
As the video played‚ Jackson and Oosthuizen looked straight at the screen as well.
Oosthuizen at times rested his chin on his hands while Jackson seemed restless‚ shifting from side to side.
According to Mlotshwa’s testimony‚ the two accused had attacked him while he was waiting to hitch-hike to Middelburg.
His mother had sent him to buy stock for a tuck shop she ran in the informal settlement‚ which is within walking distance from where the attack happened.
Mlotshwa claimed he had no idea why the pair had attacked him.
He said they kept asking him questions to which he had no answers.
“They would beat me if I gave them answers they were not satisfied with. At that stage I realised that because they would not stop assaulting me‚ I should agree with whatever they were accusing me of‚ thinking they may have mercy on me‚” he said.
He claimed to have said his prayers when he thought the two would kill him.
Oosthuizen and Jackson face charges of attempted murder‚ two counts of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm‚ kidnapping‚ intimidation‚ unlawful possession of a firearm and defeating the ends of justice.
The second charge of assault relates to another man‚ Delton Sithole‚ who claimed the same men had assaulted him just moments before they attacked Mlotshwa.
Sithole said they had accused him of trespassing after catching him walking on a footpath that crosses through the farm to an informal settlement on the other side.
The two accused have denied guilt‚ adding that they did not even know Sithole.