From: Agence France-Presse

From correspondents in Phalaborwa

Life ... Mark Crossley / AP

A WHITE South African farmer was jailed for life overnight for feeding a black worker to lions, ending a racially charged case which highlighted abuse of rural black labourers.

Witnesses said Mark Scott-Crossley, who got married in a tearful ceremony just before being sentenced, got life and black labourer Simon Mathebula 15 years, partly suspended, for their role in a murder which shocked the crime-hardened nation.

The grisly killing of 41-year-old farm worker Nelson Chisale provoked an outcry in South Africa where, more than a decade after the end of apartheid rule, some white farmers are still accused of abusing and exploiting black workers.

"Their crime, of beating him to the point of death and then throwing him to lions, was one of the most cruel and despicable acts ever to have been inflicted on a worker by an employer and deserved nothing less than the maximum sentence," trade union federation COSATU said in a statement.

Chisale's niece Fetsang Jafta said the family was "much relieved" after the sentences were handed down in a packed courtroom in Phalaborwa, near the Kruger National Park.

"That's what we expected. They are fair," she said.

Scores of people inside and outside the court greeted the sentences with cheers and verbal abuse for Scott-Crossley.

"You're going down, Scott-Crossley," shouted one person. Another said "You're going to rot in jail."

The men were convicted of murder in April.

"In the jungle the lion sleeps," read a placard held by one of a crowd of people outside the court, echoing Africa's most famous song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", composed by a South African migrant worker in the 1930s.

Little more than Chisale's skull, shards of bone and a finger were found at an enclosure for rare white lions after the murder early last year.

The incident was apparently sparked by a dispute between the deceased and his former employer Scott-Crossley, highlighting the plight of poorly paid farm workers who often lack the education and legal knowledge to challenge illegal physical abuse, exploitation or eviction from their homes on farms.

In testimony earlier this year, the court heard that Chisale was assaulted when he returned to collect his belongings from the farm where he previously worked.

It heard that Scott-Crossley had kicked a wound Chisale had received in the attack, aimed a gun at him and told him to pray.

A few hours later, the prosecution maintained, Chisale was thrown alive over the fence of a lion enclosure. A post mortem showed the cause of death as being "mauled by lions".

The court ruled in April that Scott-Crossley had held a grudge against Chisale after he complained to the labour authorities.

Chisale had also lodged a case of malicious damage against Scott-Crossley with the police for burning his property after his dismissal.

In a bizarre twist, Scott-Crossley was married privately in a neighbouring courtroom moments before he was sentenced. Witnesses said Scott-Crossley and his new bride, Simonetta Strydom, wept at their wedding.

A third employee arrested in connection with the death turned state witness against his former employer and colleagues.

Another suspect is expected to face trial separately in November after he was judged too ill to stand trial earlier.