Pretoria – A farmer and his son were acquitted by the High Court in Pretoria on Friday of killing two men nine years ago, SABC reported.

The bodies of Morris Morua, 36, and Zacharia Leso, 34, were found on Douw de Beer’s game farm in the North West after they were shot for allegedly hunting illegally.

The SABC reported that De Beer and his son Dylan were found guilty of defeating the course of justice and cellphone theft.

The judgment reportedly shocked Morua and Leso’s families.

“My feeling is that this judgment is very much unfair… they murdered them,” Morua’s father Thomas Maragela was quoted as saying.

“They say they shot in self-defence. How do we know that?”

According to the broadcaster, he said there was no proof because no post mortem could be done.

In 2011, Captain Nick Pitsoane, the investigating officer, testified that the only human remains found on the farm, near Boschkop, in April 2004 were 10 small bones.

Sapa