Cecil the lion: Zimbabwe requests extradition of US dentist Walter Palmer over killing

The Telegraph

By Peta Thornycroft, and Aislinn Laing in Johannesburg

31 Jul 2015

Zimbabwe has called for US dentist who shot Cecil the lion dead during a hunting trip to be extradited back to Africa to face poaching charges, which could carry a lengthy prison sentence.
The move came as it emerged that Dr Walter Palmer could also face a potential five year jail term in the United States and a $20,000 fine for breaching the Lacey Act, which enforces the legal protection for endangered species across the world.

Oppah Muchinguri, the Zimbabwean environment minister, said Dr Palmer was a “foreign poacher” who had financed an illegal hunt of Cecil, an “iconic attraction” in the country’s famed Hwange National Park.
She also suggested that Dr Palmer had the additional motive of wanting to tarnish Zimbabwe’s image, and said the country’s prosecutor general had initiated the extradition request.

“The illegal killing was deliberate,” she told a news conference. “We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe so that he can be held accountable for his illegal actions.”
Dr Palmer, from Minnesota, is reported to have paid about $61,000 (£35,000) to hunt a lion, and shot Cecil on July 1 on private land near to the national park. He said he believed the hunt was legal.
The hunter who accompanied him told the Telegraph the pair had been “devastated” when they realised Cecil was wearing a radio collar because he was part of an academic study by Oxford University.
However, Dr Palmer reportedly told his escort afterwards to find him a large elephant to shoot.

Mrs Muchinguri, a new appointee to the environment ministry but a stalwart of the ruling Zanu PF party and close friend of President Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace, said Dr Palmer, professional hunter Theo Bronkhorst and landowner Honest Ndlovu were part of an “organised gang”.

She said that Cecil’s killing was “deliberate” because it had taken place on land where the owner had not been allocated a quota for lions, and a bow and arrow was used “to conceal the illegal hunt by using a means that would not alert the rangers on patrol”.

“As we frantically try to protect our wildlife from organised gangs such as this one, there are people who can connive to undermine Zimbabwean laws,” she said.

“One can conclude with confidence that Dr Palmer, being an American citizen, had a well-orchestrated agenda which would tarnish the image of Zimbabwe and further strain the relationship between Zimbabwe and the USA.”

She said Dr Palmer would be sought on charges of financing an illegal hunt and for violation of Section 123 of the Parks and Wildlife Act, which controls the use of bows and arrows in hunting.
According to the act, illegal hunting and poaching can carry up to 20 years imprisonment but can also be dealt with by a fine.

Legal sources close to the prosecution of the professional hunter told The Telegraph the maximum penalty they faced for conducting and allowing an illegal hunt was $400 or a one year prison sentence.
The highest penalty ever handed to illegal huntsmen in Zimbabwe was 15 years for poisoning up to 100 elephants with cyanide in Hwange.

Richard Chibuwe, the deputy chief of mission at Zimbabwe’s embassy in Washington, said extradition would be a “last resort”.
“We are trying other avenues,” he told the Associated Press.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating what happened and a department spokesman said a representative of the dentist, who has not been seen publicly for days, had made contact with its office of law enforcement on Wednesday afternoon.

While Cecil has no legal protection under US domestic law, he is covered by the Lacey Act which enforces the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Not only are African lions explicitly covered by CITES but the Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed extending protection under the US Endangered Species act.
A spokesman for the service said it was deeply concerned about the killing of Cecil.

“We are currently gathering facts about the issue and will assist Zimbabwe officials in whatever manner requested,” the spokesman said. “It is up to all of us – not just the people of Africa – to ensure that healthy, wild populations of animals continue to roam the savanna for generations to come.”

Zimbabwe has an extradition treaty with the United States that has been in effect since April 2000 for cases in which a crime applicable in both countries is alleged to have been committed and which are punishable by more than a year in prison. The Humane Society, America’s largest animal protection organisation, gave strong support to the extradition move, its president Wayne Pacelle alleging that the killing of Cecil was not by chance but “a professional hit” by a hunter obsessed with big trophies who “had designs” on him as one of the largest lions around.

Extraditions from the United States are rare however, and the dubious human rights record of Zimbabwe’s regime would likely come into play.

Professor Fred Morrison, a constitutional and international law specialist at the University of Minnesota, said the process was also “cumbersome and expensive” for the extraditing state.
More likely, he suggested, was a prosecution in the US. “One possibility is the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that prohibits US citizens from bribing foreign government officials,” he said.
“It is alleged that he paid the game refuge officials in Zimbabwe to shoot the mortally injured lion. That might or might not be deemed a bribe.”

Emmanuel Fundira, the head of Zimbabwe’s safari industry association, said the payment of a bribe was likely to have happened.
“There had to be,” Mr Fundira told American newspaper the Star Tribune. “The documents which they used for carrying out the hunt were all illegal and fraudulently obtained.”
Mr Fundira, who helped government officials investigating the incident, said that although it was “highly, highly likely” Dr Palmer would be charged by Zimbabwe authorities, he added that the dentist “probably committed the offense unknowingly.”

“I would recommend [that Palmer] get in touch to put his side of the story in before assumptions and or conclusions are arrived at,” Fundira said.

David Coltart, a senior Zimbabwean lawyer who handled some of Zimbabwe’s most controversial political trials and served as education minister in the inclusive government, says it would be “highly problematic” for the United States to allow any of its citizens to be extradited to Zimbabwe for trial.

There was no record of any citizens of either country being extradited, Mr Coltart, a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, added.

“We have to consider the reputation of the rule of law in Zimbabwe, and whether the courts are biased,” he said. “There would also be fear within the US that this could become an opportunity to retaliate against the United States for restrictions imposed on certain Zimbabweans.”

The US imposed travel and financial sanctions against Mr Mugabe and senior Zanu-PF leaders including the present justice minister and chief prosecutor.

%d bloggers like this: