We will eat you - 'cannibal' accused

Police fired rubber bullets yesterday outside the Estcourt Magistrate's Court, where seven men accused of cannibalism appeared.

The accused - Nino Mbatha, Lungisani Magubane, Sithembiso Doctor Sithole, Lindokuhle Masondo, Khayelihle Lamula, Wiseman Madlala and Sazi Ndlovu - face charges from murder to conspiracy to commit murder.

State prosecutor Israel Zuma read out a directive from the KwaZulu-Natal director of public prosecutions to magistrate Arthi Sukhraj that charges against Masondo, Madlala and Ndlovu were to be withdrawn provisionally, pending further investigation.

The three were released and the others remained in custody.

When a crowd outside the court heard that charges were withdrawn against the three they began shouting and hurling rubbish bins.

Police fired rubber bullets and teargas to contain the crowd.

One woman was injured.

Earlier, the accused were heard chanting "We will eat you" to the gathering crowd, as they waited inside police vans to be led into the building.

Mbatha walked into the local police station last month and confessed to officers that he was tired of being forced to eat human flesh.

Mbatha named a neighbour with whom he had fought earlier in the day as the alleged mastermind behind the flesh-eating plot.

The news rocked the small town in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.

Sukhraj set a bail hearing for October 27.