Zambian rhino poacher jailed
2007-08-05 21:21
Harare - A Zambian rhino poacher has been sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for attempted murder and other offences after a shoot-out with Zimbabwean game rangers, reports said on Sunday.
A magistrate in the western coal-mining town of Hwange, close to the world-renowned Hwange national park, sentenced Morris Kakwezhi, 24, to 10 years in jail for attempted murder.
The state-controlled Sunday Mail said he received an additional five years for possessing an unlicensed weapon, as well as three one-year jail terms for poaching, illegally possessing ammunition and unlawfully entering the country, it added.
Hwange magistrate David Johnstone-Butcher said, when passing the sentence, that he took into account that poachers were prepared to commit murder to sustain the trade in rhino horn.
The poacher was arrested on May 17 when he and three accomplices were confronted by three game rangers in the Hwange national park.
The game rangers reportedly fired warning shots into the air, to which Kakwezhi responded by firing at the game rangers, before dropping his rifle and fleeing the scene.
He was later captured, but his three accomplices got away.
Zimbabwe's rare rhinoceros population is under severe threat from poachers who covet the animals' horns for sale to middlemen based in the region. The horn is used to make dagger handles in the Middle East and traditional medicine in Asia.
- SAPA