Killer chimp still at large

2006-04-25 22:08

Freetown - The first chimpanzee to join Sierra Leone's reserve for the animals is believed to have turned killer and is still at large, rangers said on Tuesday.

The 20-year-old animal, named Bruno, has been linked to the death of Sierra Leonean driver Issa Kanu, said zoo officials.

Two United States tourists were seriously injured during an attack by a pack of chimpanzees on the loose at Tagucama Chimp Sanctuary on the outskirts of Freetown.

Sierra Leonean police and rangers continued the hunt on Tuesday for Bruno and 17 other chimpanzees after only nine of the 27 that escaped from the reserve had been recovered.

According to zoo officials, citing survivors' accounts of the attack, Bruno smashed the windscreen of the car that took the men to Tacugama with his fist.

Kanu tried to drive the car away, but crashed into the zoo gate and the vehicle was trapped by the iron bars.

Named after boxer

"Bruno grabbed the driver by the neck, slammed him on the ground and chopped off all his fingers and toes," said one official who asked not to be identified.

"He then ate up the entire face of Issa, leaving him dead,"

Sanctuary manager Bala Amarasekaran said he bought Bruno when he was a few months old for $30s and named him after Frank Bruno, the British heavyweight boxer who fought Mike Tyson on the day of the transaction.

According to the Tacugama official website, for a year Bruno lived in the Amarasekarans house, but "got up to lots of mischief".

Described as the "alpha male", Bruno "is a large, powerful chimp."

"He is wary of visitors and is painfully accurate at hurling rocks and stones at anyone he doesn't like the look of."

He was moved into a cage only when a second chimpanzee was acquired.

"One of the most-wanted chimps is still at large, we are hoping that he could be caught quickly," said a zoo keeper on Tuesday.

Sama Banya, president of the Sierra Leone Conservation Society, which runs Tacugama, said the weekend attack was the first of its kind in the sanctuary's 10-year history.

He said the primates "are not wild, but their behaviour was highly unusual" at the time.

The names of the injured Americans have not been officially released, but media named the three people in the group besides Issa as Alan Robertson, Gary Brown and Richie Goodie.

Recovering from shock

They were all American sub-contractors working at the site of the new US embassy under construction at Leicester Peak Junction about three kilometres from the zoo.

A nurse at the hospital said: "The men are recovering gradually from shock and their wounds are no longer life-threatening."

The semi-wildlife reserve, housing about 80 animals, was set up in 1995 by wildlife enthusiast Amarasekaran to give a home to orphaned and abandoned chimpanzees.

- SAPA