A 56-year-old mortuary attendant at the Beit Bridge District Hospital has been arrested for allegedly fleecing local residents of their money, after promising to incinerate the bodies of three babies illegally.

Lawrence Mhuri, who is employed as a security guard and who also doubles up as a mortuary attendant, faces three counts of contravening a section of the Criminal Law Reform and Codification Act (violating a corpse). He was not asked to plead to the charges when he appeared before a local magistrate, Ms Gloria Takundwa, on Friday.

The case was postponed to 1 September and Mhuri was released on bail of S$50.

The prosecutor, Mr Jabulani Mberesi, told the court that on 1 January this year, Fortune Vengesai of Dulibadzimu Township’s baby was stillborn. The baby was put in the mortuary at Beit Bridge District Hospital. Mhuri then allegedly approached her the following day and offered to cremate the corpse at a cost of R300, using the hospital incinerator. This despite the fact that the incinerator had been dysfunctional for three years.

It is alleged that he then burnt the baby’s body in the hospital's backyard. He supposedly used petrol to set the body on fire.

The court heard that in the second incident, which occurred on 16 May, Nomsa Jacob’s eight-month-old child died at her house in the same town. She took it to the mortuary in the company of other relatives, so that they could make funeral arrangements. They were allegedly approached by Mhuri, who offered to cremate the baby.  He demanded R 350 from the family and was given the money but did not cremate the corpse.

He later told the relatives that he had cremated the baby in their absence. The body was discovered in June, dumped at the hospital’s organic-waste pit.

It is further alleged that on 21 June, another local woman, Locadia Hove, had had a stillbirth at the same hospital and was also approached by Mhuri. He allegedly duped the mother in the same manner and took the body to the town’s waste management centre, five kilometres west of the hospital, where he disposed of the body.

Mhuri was arrested, following the discovery of the second body.