Family members of Mosoko Rampuru, allegedly murdered by his former employer and his body dragged behind a bakkie, lit candles outside the Bloemfontein High Court on Tuesday to call for an end to racism.
Crying and singing, the Rampuru family said they regarded Mosoko's murder as racially motivated, and expressed the hope that the "sickness" of racial intolerance would soon be eradicated.
South Africans lit candles and torches across the country on Tuesday as a symbol of their opposition to racism.
Sasolburg businessman Piet Odendaal, 45, is standing trial for Rampuru's murder.
Rampuru's body was discovered in open veld outside town on August 25 last year, with a piece of wire attached to his right ankle.
State pathologist Professor Jan Botha on Tuesday gave testimony to the effect that Rampuru was dead before he was tied to the bakkie. He said Rampuru had died relatively quickly.
Botha told the court he found injuries on Rampuru that were sustained prior and after death. Pre-death injuries included a serious wound to the chest, which appeared to have been inflicted by a very heavy object, or by someone jumping on Rampuru.
He also suffered serious head injuries, blood on the brain, and cuts inside the mouth.
Botha said he found blood in Rampuru's stomach.
"He would have been dead between 10 and 15 minutes after these injuries."
The wire was tied to Rampuru's ankle after death, the expert testified. The abrasions sustained by being dragged behind the bakkie were also post mortem.
"These are not the type of injuries I would have expected if someone was dragged behind a vehicle alive," Botha told the court.
The injuries which caused Rampuru's death pointed to blunt force being used, said the pathologist.
Police Inspector Leonardus Saaiman testified that his colleague, Inspector Peter Msotywa, followed the blood trail left by Rampuru's body to Odendaal's bakkie standing outside his workplace in Sasolburg.
There were blood stains on the back of the vehicle.
They found Odendaal sitting at his desk with his head in his hands.
"He told me he had a really shit week," Saaiman told the
court.
Terry Price, for Odendaal, said his client would not have said this, as he had just experienced one of his best business months.
Saaiman said Odendaal acted normally when they found him. He smelt of alcohol.
Photographs taken of his office showed an empty glass and a bottle of brandy on the desk. A fire extinguisher was lying on the floor.
Asked by Jannie Botha, for the state, whether the fire extinguisher may have been used in the attack, Botha said he doubted it, as it was too light.
The injuries were more consistent with somebody heavy jumping on the victim, he said. The court heard Odendaal weighed 120kg.
Odendaal, who now lives in Durban, on Monday pleaded not guilty to murder, saying he could not remember the incident.
He contends that mixing alcohol and sedatives, following a fight with his wife, had caused his memory loss. - Sapa