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Cecil the lion

Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter

PROFESSIONAL hunter, Theodro Bronkhorst, was yesterday granted bail after he appeared in court charged with failing to prevent the illegal hunting and killing of Cecil the lion at Antoinette Farm in the Gwayi Conservancy.

Bronkhorst of 16 Bernafay Lane, Riverside suburb in Bulawayo, who runs Bushman Safaris, was not asked to plead to the charge when he appeared before Hwange Magistrate Lindiwe Maphosa. He was remanded out of custody to August 5 on $1000 bail and ordered to report three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at Hillside Police Station in Bulawayo

The 13-year old lion was wearing a GPS collar as part of an Oxford University research project

Bronkhorst was also ordered to reside at his Riverside address, not to interfere with state witnesses and to surrender his passport to the clerk of court in Hwange.

Gwayi Conservancy farmer, Honest Trymore Ndlovu, who had not been allocated a lion on his hunting quota for 2015 at his Antoinette property, is yet to appear in court after prosecutors separated his charges from those of Bronkhorst. He is charged with allowing an illegal hunt on his land.

More to follow…