Johannesburg (CNN) When a South African traditional healer wandered into a police station last year and told officers he was "tired of eating human flesh," the police struggled to believe his morbid claim.

That changed when Nino Mbatha, who was also carrying a bag containing a human leg and hand, took the officers to a house in the town of Estcourt, in KwaZulu-Natal province, where more body parts were found.

The case, which has horrified South Africans and been dubbed locally the "cannibal case," came to a close on Wednesday when Mbatha, 33, and Lungisani Magubane, 32, were given life sentences for murder, AFP reports. A third man was acquitted. All three men denied the charges, according to local media.

Traditional medicine

Pietermaritzburg High Court judge Peter Olsen sentenced both men to life in prison for the killing of Zanele Hlatshwayo last year, saying they were guilty of "the most heinous crime," according to local media.

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