A Kenyan court has sentenced Feisal Mohammed, an ivory poaching and smuggling kingpin, to 20 years in jail for possessing more than 400 pieces of ivory valued at close to $500,000.
In the landmark ruling which was delivered on Friday in Mombasa, the Principal Magistrate Diana Mochache also imposed a fine of $200,000 on Mohammed, a Kenyan national.
This picture shows one stack of burning elephant tusks, ivory figurines and rhinoceros horns at the Nairobi National Park on April 30, 2016. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire on April 30, 2016, to the world’s biggest ivory bonfire, after demanding a total ban on trade in tusks and horns to end ‘murderous’ trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild. / AFP / FREDRIK LERNERYD
According to Kenya’s Citizen Television, Feisal and four others were found in possession of more than 2,000 kilograms of ivory on June 2nd, 2014 in Mombasa but he escaped from the country shortly afterwards. He was arrested by Interpol agents in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in December 2014 and has been in custody ever since. However, his four accomplices were acquitted for lack of enough evidence to pin them.
Under Kenyan law, poaching and trading in ivory attracts a minimum sentence of 5 years and a fine of at least $9,000. But Alexander Muteti, the assistant director of public prosecutions, had urged the court to give Faisal a life sentence.
In a press statement, the Kenya Wildlife Service celebrated the ruling as “a strong message to all networks of poaching gangs, ivory smugglers, financiers, middlemen and shippers.”