Ivory trade: One Month in Prison for Three Offenders (Senegal)

Author(s)

Le Quotidian

Date Published

Detained on February 11, in possession of 237 carved ivory items, which account for five and a half kilos of ivory, More Cisse, El Hadji Beye, and Massamba Mbaye will spend a few more days in prison. The judge sentenced them to one month in and severally to pay a fine of six hundred thousand francs CFA—a verdict in the eyes of members of the Senegal project under the Wildlife Act (SALF), which is not proof of a “determination to deter this highly lucrative wildlife trade” in Africa.

Three ivory merchants, More Cisse, El Hadji Beye and Massamba Mbaye, arrested on February 11 in Dakar are now built on their legal fate. They have indeed been tried and sentenced, on  February 26, “a month (prison) farm” and to pay “a fine of 600,000 CFA francs payable jointly to detention crimes, circulation, and marketing trophies of protected species.” These convicts had been “caught with 271 carved ivory objects representing 5 and a half kilos of ivory” while entering tortious objects was “to 4.5 million CFA francs,” the statement said 

Senegal Project under the Wildlife Law (SALF) dated February 11. The SALF, announcing the verdict through a statement, has made an appraisal of the verdict of these offenders. Taking care to indicate that “the same value of seized ivory was about eight million,” the SALF notes: “This conviction, considered low by the international community given the seriousness of the facts, does not show a determination to deter this highly lucrative wildlife trade across the continent and for which the last African elephants pay a very heavy price.”
Calling for “an effective fight against illegal wildlife trade,” the project, Senegal application of wildlife law, believed that the penalty imposed on the three ivory traffickers was to be exemplary. Also, it believed that “the judicial authorities in charge of sanctioning must use their imperium and pose the weight of justice on traffickers.” This attitude from them contributes to collaboration “with the work of a good justice and enforcement of wildlife laws.”

Faced with a “transnational organized crime” as defined as such by Congress United Nations crime, the SALF stresses that “in the absence of strong repression and best convictions, traffickers continue to be involved in this illegal trade by defeating the efforts of the fight against wildlife crime.”Arguing that the ivory remains “a very serious issue that deserves serious attention,” the Senegal application of wildlife law project informs that in Kenya, “the judge can impose life imprisonment for ivory trafficking; same thing as South Africa where a trafficker was sentenced to 77 years in prison last year.” Wildlife trafficking, including ivory, is a major concern for governments around the world and for Africa and is “extremely lucrative,” generating $20 billion per year. It involves members of organized crime and is linked to other types of traffic such as drugs, weapons, money laundering, further stressed the SALF.
The SALF project points out that terrorist movements such as Al-Shabaab, the Janjaweed, Boko Haram, etc. derive their funding from elephant ivory trafficking. And that “the ivory would provide about 40% of funds to the Al-Shabaab group to stay in business and destabilize the East and Central Africa.” And these same terrorist groups concerned Senegal, which has decided to strengthen “its security of the entire territory.” 

This concern, we note, also relates to West Africa. Thus, it remarks, “in Mali, one in five elephants were killed to supply the illegal ivory trade since early 2015, according to Minusma, (the maintaining peace mission of the UN in Mali); this increase is related to the activities of jihadist groups in the country.” — [email protected]

http://www.lequotidien.sn/index.php/component/k2/trafic-d-ivoire-1-mois-de-prison-pour-3-delinquants