Judgement date set in hunter’s murder trial

The Namibian

Judgement date set in hunter’s murder trial

By: WERNER MENGES

THE five men who have been on trial in the High Court for the past month in connection with the murder of a professional hunter during an alleged poaching excursion in the Outjo area near the end of 2006 are set to get an idea of their fate at the start of December.

The last testimony in the trial of the five men was given before Judge Louis Muller on Thursday last week. State prosecutor Lourens Campher and defence lawyers Boris Isaacks and Lucia Hamutenya now have to file written arguments to be considered by Judge Muller, who has set December 1 as the date when he will be delivering his judgement in the trial.
The trial of Willem Peter (38), Gert Nuxabeb (25), his brother, Jafet Nuxabeb (21), John Khamuxab (20) and Johannes Heiki (67) started on September 17 when all five of them pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, stock theft, theft of a motor vehicle, the theft of a hunting rifle, ammunition and compact discs, defeating the course of justice, the altering, mutilating or cancelling of a registered livestock brand, and possession of a firearm and ammunition without a licence.
The person who was set to be the first accused in the trial, Immanuel Isako, was not in court for the start of the trial or thereafter. Isako (35) died in Police custody on May 21 this year.
The allegations against the five accused and Isako are that all of them, except for Heiki, were involved in the poaching of a heifer on a farm next to the main road between Outjo and Kamanjab during the night of December 6 to 7 2006.
The animal was shot by Isako, who was accompanied by Peter, the Nuxabeb brothers and Khamuxab when he went on the poaching trip that evening, the court heard during the trial.
The shot heifer had already been loaded onto the back of Isako’s bakkie when professional hunter Daniel van Vuuren arrived at the scene.
Van Vuuren confronted Isako about the animal, the court was told by two prosecution witnesses who were at the scene and also by the four charged men who were with Isako. After an exchange of words between Van Vuuren and Isako, Van Vuuren turned and was walking back to his bakkie when Isako fired a shot at him with the rifle with which he had earlier shot the heifer.
Van Vuuren was shot through his pelvis.
Isako then readied the gun to fire another shot, aiming the rifle at Van Vuuren’s head – but then the gun failed to go off, the Judge was told.
One of the eyewitnesses at the scene told the court that Isako, Jafet Nuxabeb and Khamuxab carried the wounded Van Vuuren off the road. Nuxabeb and Khamuxab denied this. The witness also claimed that he heard – but did not see – Van Vuuren being beaten where he had been taken into the grass next to the road.
Van Vuuren (43) was found dead at that spot the next morning.
In the meantime, Isako and company had transported the stolen heifer to the nearby farm where Isako was farming and Heiki was also living. There, Isako’s cattle brand was put on the skin of the slaughtered heifer and Heiki helped Isako to hide the skin, a rifle, ammunition and other items that Isako stole from Van Vuuren’s vehicle, it is alleged.
By December 8 2006, all six suspects had been arrested.
The court heard that two tubs of car exhaust repair putty that were found at the scene were crucial in putting the Police on the trail of Isako and his co-accused.
When Police officers investigating the case made enquiries at an Outjo garage about the exhaust putty, they were told that Isako and Peter had been at the garage on December 6 2005 and that they bought two tubs of that sort of putty.
The court also heard that the .308 rifle that Isako was accused of having used to kill Van Vuuren is registered in the name of Richardt Thomson (34), an Outjo resident who is awaiting his trial in the High Court on charges of robbing and murdering an 81-year-old man at Walvis Bay in early July 2005.
Thomson refused to give a statement to the Police on his firearm, Judge Muller heard.
Heiki is the only one of the remaining five accused to be free on bail.

The Namibian

3 accused of stealing three sable antelopes
By: WERNER MENGES

AN Otjiwarongo area farmer and two co-accused remain in custody after making a first court appearance yesterday on charges stemming from allegations that they stole three sable antelope from the Waterberg Plateau Park.
Farmer Hans Erno Diekmann (51), Herbert Wolfgang Henle (47) and Jurgen Richard Benz (35) appeared before Magistrate Stanley Tembwe in the Otjiwarongo Magistrate’s Court on charges of theft, hunting of protected game, and transporting game without a permit.
Their case was postponed to November 2, and it was ordered that they would remain in custody in the meantime.
According to the Regional Commander of the Namibian Police in the Otjozondjupa Region, Deputy Commissioner Joseph Anghuwo, the three men were arrested during the midnight hours between Friday and Saturday this past weekend.
Anghuwo said the Police had received information that they were planning to transport three sable antelope that had escaped from Waterberg Plateau Park.
Anghuwo said nature conservation officials helped set up a roadblock, but the arrests were made at Diekmann’s farm. He said the prized animals were found on the farm where they had been loaded onto a truck.
The three men are also alleged to have used a helicopter as part of the transport operation, Anghuwo said.

The killing fields

Selous: The killing fields

From This Day News
October 26, 2009



TANZANIA’S wildlife sanctuaries, particularly the world-famous Selous Game Reserve, have now been turned into vast killing fields where hundreds of elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory, it has been revealed.

There has been a fresh spike in elephant poaching in recent years, with some disgruntled game wardens either turning a blind eye to illegal hunting activities or themselves taking part in killing the same animals they were hired to protect.

”An average of 50 elephants are being killed in the Selous each month...and that is a conservative estimate,” an official working in the game park told THISDAY last week.

”Sometimes, authorities torch the carcasses of elephants that have been killed by poachers to conceal the truth about the extent of the problem,� he added.

Ironically, as the country buckles under this latest wave of elephant poaching, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism now wants the ban on ivory trade lifted.

Tanzania and Zambia have jointly petitioned the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to further open up the trade by allowing them to sell off their ivory stocks.

The CITES ban on ivory trade was imposed some 20 years ago. Animal rights campaigners say the ban has been instrumental in allowing the elephant population in Tanzania to recover from the massive poaching of the 1980s.

Impeccable sources with many years of working experience in the Selous, which is Africa�s largest protected wildlife reserve, have confirmed that not less than 50 elephants are killed monthly by hardcore poachers in collaboration with ”an army of demoralized game scouts.”

”Poachers have colonized the Selous and the game scouts are aiding and abetting the killings,” said the sources who requested anonymity, saying poaching is a sensitive issue that sometimes involved powerful and dangerous syndicates.

The sources say the wildlife division in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism used to pay game scouts a working allowance of between 250,000/- and 300,000/- a month, but due to a razor-thin budget that allowance was suspended a couple of years ago.

Another source said he counted 60 carcases of the jumbos on roads within the Selous game reserve in the period between January and October this year.

�There is organized poaching masterminded by demoralized game scouts, which is more dangerous than the previous poaching of the 1980s,� said the sources, warning that if the government does not take urgent measures to arrest the trend, �we will have no elephants in two years to come�.

�The ministry (of Natural Resources and Tourism) is literally crippled and the anti-poaching unit is in the ICU (intensive care unit), because it has completely failed to control poaching,� said the sources.

They named Miguruwe (Kilwa district), Matambwe (Morogoro South), Liwale (Lindi region), Msola (Morogoro region), Ilonga (Mahenge), Kingupira (Utete), and Mtemere (Rufiji) as most affected sections within the Selous.

The sources said the game scouts used to patrol most parts of the game reserve on a weekly basis, but nowadays patrols may not be done for up to three months, allowing poachers to massacre the jumbos at will.

A source from the Kilwa open area situated adjacent to the Selous game reserve said he spotted 17 carcases of elephants between May and June this year.

�Kilwa was once renowned for its giant elephants. But you can hardly see those nowadays. They are gone. Elephant poaching is now a daily business,� said the source.

Abdallah Kanunga (49), chairman of the Magingo wildlife management area embracing nine villages situated in Selous game reserve buffer zones in Liwale district, said elephant poaching is no longer done secretly.

Other sources said the government should make anti-poaching a life-or-death matter otherwise �we will lose even the foreign exchange we are getting from foreign tourists because they will stop visiting Tanzania if there are no animals to see.�

The sources suggested the transfer of game scouts from their current work stations within the Selous game reserve, and recruitment of new scouts.

They also suggested the revival of Operation Uhai, which involved soldiers of the Tanzania People’s Defence Forces in fighting poaching in the 1980s.

The worst period of elephant poaching experienced in the country was probably 1977-87, when the elephant population dwindled from 184,000 to 55,000.

A joint crusade mounted by TPDF, the wildlife department, police and customs authorities resulted in the confiscation of more than 10,000 guns and at least 700 people prosecuted in connection with poaching activities in 1988 alone.

Tanzania is the leading country in illegally slaughtering and exporting of ivory in Africa, a new scientific research has revealed.

In March this year, authorities in Vietnam seized 6.3 tons of ivory originating from Tanzania, followed by another 2 tons, also coming from Tanzania, seized in August.

Between January and September, nearly 24 tons of ivory was confiscated worldwide. In the meantime, black-market prices for raw ivory continue to rocket, exceeding $1,000 a kilogramme, according to reports.

Contacted for comment, the current director of wildlife in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Erasmus Tarimo, said the reports of elephant poaching in the Selous were exaggerated.

�A recent aerial count found 41 carcases of elephants. But 41 dead elephants is minimal compared to the total Selous elephant population of around 40,000,� he said, adding that some elephants had died of natural causes.

Tarimo said: �Our intention is to have zero poaching, but to maintain zero poaching is impossible. It is not easy to control poaching 100 per cent.�

He also acknowledged reports of demoralized game wardens participating in the poaching activities, saying: �It is very difficult to pin down those wardens involved in the malpractice.�

Tarimo called on people with information about game scouts involved in poaching to come forward and give such information to relevant authorities so that preventive action can be taken.