In his last anxious hours before being mauled by a pride of lions, a farmworker tried to escape from his captors but was assaulted and overpowered.
This was the chilling admission on Monday by Richard "Doctor" Mathebula - one of the Phalaborwa farmworkers charged with Nelson Chisale's murder in January 2004.
Mathebula pleaded not guilty in the Phalaborwa Circuit Court to a charge of murder, saying he had acted under extreme duress.
Attorney Matthews Kekana said his client would tell the court that his boss, Mark Scott-Crossley, had told him and co-accused Simon Mathebula that "if they say a word, they will follow Chisale".
Richard Mathebula, 41, Scott-Crossley, 37, and Simon Mathebula, 43, all went on trial on Monday for the murder of Chisale, 43. The Mathebulas are not related.
Reading out Richard Mathebula's plea explanation to the court, Kekana said Scott-Crossley had instructed his client to "nab any trespassers" on his farm, Engedi.
It is the state's case that Chisale was fired in November 2003, apparently for running a personal errand during work hours.
Two months later he went to the farm to collect his belongings, where he was allegedly attacked with pangas by the Mathebulas and tied up with rope.
The indictment says Scott-Crossley was then called to the scene and held a gun to Chisale, who was loaded onto a truck, taken to an enclosure where lions were held, and thrown in.
An autopsy determined that Chisale was killed by the lions.
In his explanation, Richard Mathebula said: "Chisale tried to run away and he was hit on the side with a panga."
"We overpowered him and tied him to a tree until Scott-Crossley arrived. Scott-Crossley pushed Chisale to the ground and trampled on his head. He ordered his son to get a firearm and pointed it at Chisale."
"People there screamed at Scott-Crossley not to kill Chisale."
Kekana told the court that Scott-Crossley loaded Chisale onto a bakkie and drove to the Mokwalo White Lion Project, about 20km away, where Chisale - still alive, according to court documents -
was thrown over a fence into a lion camp.
Kekana said his client would admit to the assault and dumping Chisale in the lion's den, but would plead that it was done under severe compulsion.
Scott-Crossley's advocate, Johann Engelbrecht, told the court that his client was exercising his right to remain silent as he "had been denied the right to a fair trial".
Engelbrecht said the defence did not have a chance to examine all the evidence, including a report about a finger found in the enclosure which state prosecutors said belonged to Chisale.
Superintendent Ian van der Nest, a crime scene investigator, said he found blood in the back of the bakkie allegedly used to take Chisale to the lion camp.
In the encampment itself, Van der Nest said, he found bloodstains on the ground, a shaft of long bones, bits of a checked shirt, material ripped from a pair of khaki trousers, a skull with no mandible, and fragments of ribs, vertebrae, a pelvic girdle and a finger.
State prosecutor Ivy Tsenga told the court that the lions had "devoured" Chisale.
However, there was enough of the finger left to obtain a fingerprint and identify Chisale.
Outside the courthouse, about 50 placard-waving protesters staged a noisy rally calling for stiff sentences for the three men.
"We are here to make sure that justice is done," said Bethuel Rasekhotoma, a leader of the ANC Youth League.
"We want three life sentences plus 100 years," said another protester, Abitha Malatji.
"All three of them must rot in jail," she said, holding a placard that read "Life sentence for Mark Crossley".
Chisale's sister Johanna said it was painful to look at the three men accused of throwing her brother into the lions' enclosure.
Scott-Crossley has spent most of the past year in the Nelspruit police station's holding cells.
He was moved there from Nelspruit Prison after eight masked men allegedly robbed and assaulted him in a communal cell amid suggestions that the murder might have been racially motivated.
He was granted bail of R250 000 earlier this month.
Looking haggard and drawn on Monday, Scott-Crossley turned up at court with his lawyer and brother, and declared: "I feel good and I feel confident."
The case continues. - Sapa, Sapa-AP and Sapa-AFP