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Leonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter
A MAGISTRATE yesterday reversed a community service sentence she had initially given to one of four illegal ivory dealers and replaced it with 12 months in jail, saying lenient sentences invited public criticism.Ignatius Msipha, 22, had on Wednesday escaped jail time when Victoria Falls magistrate Sharon Rosemani sent him for community service assessment after sentencing his accomplices Munyaradzi Nhanhanga, 26, Freedom Mandundu, 26, and Francis Simbarashe Nyandoro, 28 to nine years in jail each. The court found no extenuating circumstances on the trio’s cases.

Msipha’s joy was shortlived when Rosemani yesterday said she considered that poaching crimes were on the increase. “There are special circumstances in your case and I also considered that you are a first offender who showed remorse and didn’t benefit from the crime. You are a breadwinner in your family and it’s clear that you didn’t kill an elephant in this case.

However, in aggravation you chose to do something you knew was wrong. Also there   is an increase in the number of cases involving wildlife and poaching especially in the past few years,” said the magistrate. Rosemani said while checking on similar cases where leniency was exercised, there has been a lot of criticism from members of the public.

She said she had considered community service but later realised that it would not be a good sentence especially when Msipha’s co-accused were serving jail terms. The court found special circumstances in that Msipha’s involvement was minimal and that he was only hired and didn’t know that Nhanhanga, Mandundu and Nyandoro were carrying a tusk.

Meanwhile, there was drama when the mother of Nyandoro, Stella Weza Masango Dlamini whose spiritual name is Manake Machena went into a trance and started insulting court officials soon after the announcement of the sentence.

The woman accused the court officials of corruption and “favouring elephants at the expense of human life”. When the trial started, the spiritualist claimed she had been sent by the gods to save her son and his accomplices.

“Objection your worship, that’s not right. All of you are corrupt and we know it,” she said as she stood from the gallery attempting to approach the bench but was whisked out of the court by alert security personnel. That is when she started hurling insults at them. The court immediately adjourned while she was briefly detained by police before being released. The state’s case was that the four were on January 27 found in possession of one elephant tusk weighing 9,34 kg.

Police officers received a tip-off that the accused were on their way to Kingdom Hotel with an elephant tusk which they intended to sell to an unknown buyer.

Detectives then proceeded to the hotel and intercepted the accused persons at the car park.

After having asked the driver to open the car boot, the police officers found the tusk and a digital scale and arrested them before they implicated Nyoni, saying he sold it to them for 1,000 pula and $15.

Listen Nare appeared for the state.