Anger as farmer fined for killing boy

A South African magistrate's decision to fine a white farmer £700 for shooting dead an 11-year-old boy after mistaking him for a "dog with rabies" has sparked outrage in a country still battling to achieve racial reconciliation.

Marcel Nel was found guilty this week of killing Sello Pele in Thabazimbi in the Limpopo province.

Sello had been playing with friends when the shooting occurred. However, the magistrate agreed with the farmer that the black boy's white jersey and black trousers fitted the description of a rabid dog with a black-and-white coat that had been seen in the area.

The magistrate convicted Nel of the lesser charge of culpable homicide instead of murder, for which he would have faced a life sentence. Instead, Nel receiveda fine.

Outraged rights organisations have attacked the sentence. The South African Human Rights Commission said the judgment would send the message that "black life is cheap".

The local spokesman for the Pan African Congress party, Mudini Maivha, said: "Our justice system is still what it used to be under apartheid. Our people are subjected to callous murders without any recourse from the courts."

The radical opposition party Azapo excoriated President Thabo Mbeki's government for not dealing decisively with white judicial officers whom the party said continued to undermine black people.

However, the Association for Rural Advancement warned that the decision would perpetuate violence against white farmers. More than 1,000 farmers have been killed on their properties in the past decade, mostly during robberies.

Twelve years after the end of apartheid, racial tensions still run high across South Africa. Last week, a group of black squatters clubbed to death Kenneth Eva, a white farm manager whose land they occupied, after an argument.

Light sentences against whites who murder blacks also provoked anger. A white farmer who chained a black worker to the back of his truck and dragged him to death in August 2000 was sentenced to only 10 years in prison by a white judge. The judge suspended three of the 10 years.