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Speaker of Parliament Thandi Modise on the Potchefstroom Regional Court dock faces charges of animal cruelty.
- The Speaker of Parliament, Thandi Modise, has been charged with six counts of animal cruelty.
- In July 2014, dozens of bodies and emaciated animals were discovered on his farm in the northwest.
- Modise has pleaded not guilty to the charges in private prosecution proceedings.
Speaker of Parliament Thandi Modise has pleaded not guilty to six counts of animal cruelty in a case dating back to 2014, when dozens of corpses and emaciated animals were found on her farm in the northwest.
Modise appeared in the Potchefstroom Regional Court dock on Tuesday as a private trial against him began.
The AfriForum lobbyist’s Private Prosecution Unit is prosecuting her on behalf of the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA).
This is the first private AfriForum indictment to go to trial. In 2017, the National Prosecutor’s Office decided that it would not prosecute Modise.
A nolle prosequi certificate was not issued because the NSPCA has the legal powers to prosecute offenders privately.
Subsequently, the NSPCA instituted the private prosecution. AfriForum advocate Gerrie Nel and advocate Phyllis Vorster will prosecute the matter on your behalf.
READ ALSO | No arrest warrant executed in Thandi Modise animal cruelty case, says Parliament
According to the charge sheet, some animals were found dead on the farm and others were neglected and mistreated at Modise’s Modderfontein farm in Tlokwe on July 5, 2014.
More than 50 pigs and several other animals, including sheep, chickens and geese, were already dead when the NSPCA first inspected the farm. Another 224 animals had to be euthanized, the charge sheet said.
Modise faces six counts of animal cruelty.
All six charges fall under the Animal Protection Act and Modise is alleged to:
- Abused and neglected the animals on his farm by failing to procure and / or provide adequate food for the animals on his farm;
- Unnecessarily hungry and / or poorly fed and / or animals on your farm are denied water or food by failing to procure and / or provide adequate food and water for the animals on your farm
- He confined and repressed the animals on his farm without making adequate provisions for adequate food, drinking water and rest for such animals in circumstances where it was necessary;
- Deliberately or without reasonable cause or excuse, he abandoned the animals, whether permanently or not, in circumstances that could cause them unnecessary suffering.
Nel told the court that the alleged neglect of more than 147 pigs, more than 59 sheep, more than 11 lambs, more than 54 goats and more than 25 chickens and geese led to the alleged emaciation, and even death, of the animals.
After Modise pleaded not guilty to the charges, his legal representative, lawyer Dali Mpofu SC, said that there was no explanation of guilt available and that the trial could continue.
Former Northwest Public Works, Highways and Transportation MEC Raymond Elisha told the out-of-court media that the charges against Modise were political in nature and that there was sabotage at the farm.
Elisha suggested that a faction of the ANC in the northwest had conspired with opposition parties to sabotage food and water on the farm. She added that they would expose those who put Modise in that position and that she had no idea what was happening on the farm.
The case continues.
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