Liwonde First Grade Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday convicted and sentenced three men to serve 12 years in jail each for illegal entry into a protected area, conveying weapon into a protected area, killing protected species and possessing game meat.
Machinga Police Public Relations Officer, Davie Sulumbu confirmed the conviction of Daudi Asima, 34, Lewis Kaliati Asibu, 27 and Jackson Lanjesi, 28 for acting contrary to sections 32, 33, 35 and 86 as read with section 110 of the National Parks and Wildlife Act.
Liwonde Police Prosecutor Ezekiel Kalunga told the court that the three were arrested on December 16, 2017 when park assistants were on routine patrols within Liwonde National Park which is under African Parks.
“In the course of their duty they came across a Hippo lying dead with part of its carcass removed, upon checking on it, it was discovered that the endangered animal species was killed by human beings using spears and further inspection was made which led to the recovery of three spears at a distance within the park,” he said.
The three were later arrested after police investigated the case in which the three offenders who said they were in a group of 15 and others are still at large were found with game meat.
Appearing before court the convicts, however, pleaded not guilty which forced the state to parade four witnesses who proved the three wrong without reasonable doubt.
Prosecutor Kalunga, therefore, pleaded with the court to impose a stiff punishment to the convicts in view of the fact that this was an organised crime which attracts meaningful penalties besides the cases being common in the area.
Passing sentence, First Grade Magistrate, Jones Masula concurred with the state as such sentenced the three each to 12 years in jail on the first, second and third counts of illegal entry in a protected area, conveying a weapon into a protected area and killing protected species to run concurrently but four of possessing game meat consecutively without options of fines.
In mitigation, the trio asked the court to exercise leniency when passing sentence on the basis that they had some family obligations which would suffer if sent to jail.
All the three convicts come from Traditional Authority (T.A) Liwonde in Machinga.