Legs sawn off: funeral parlour owner acquitted

GRAHAMSTOWN funeral parlour owner Ronel Mostert, who was charged with violating a corpse after two employees sawed off the legs of a tall corpse to fit it into a coffin, walked free this week after successfully applying to the court for her discharge.

Earlier, two witnesses and former employees of Mostert's Siyakubonga Funeral Parlour, Mziwanele Klaas and Siphamandla Dyasi, testified how they had cut off the lower legs of Thamsanqa Tshali's corpse with an angle grinder the day before the funeral so it would fit into a conventional coffin.

Klaas told the court he had done so on the instruction of Mostert, who had given him an angle grinder and a key to the parlour where they had committed the deed.

They had then put the corpse in the coffin and prepared it for burial. The next morning Klaas said he returned the angle grinder and key to Mostert.

Mostert's lawyer Gerald Bloem SC said if called to testify, Mostert would deny she had given such an instruction.

Instead, she would say when Klaas had come to her with the problem of the tall corpse the day before the funeral she had been deeply upset.

Bloem put it to Klaas he had said to her: "Mama, don't worry I will make a plan."

He said she would say she had no knowledge of the mutilation of the corpse. Klaas denied her version of events.

At the conclusion of the state's case, Bloem successfully applied for the discharge of his client in terms of section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Act.

In terms of this, if, at the close of the prosecution's case, the court is of the opinion there is no evidence that the accused committed the offence, it may discharge and acquit the accused. -0 Adrienne Carlisle