Zim govt calls for US to extradite Cecil’s killer

The brother of Cecil, the lion killed in Zimbabwe by a wealthy US dentist, has been shot and killed, the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force says.

“Unfortunately it was too late to apprehend the foreign poacher as he had already absconded to his country of origin”, Oppah Muchinguri told a news conference.

She said 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.

A White House petition requesting Palmer be extradited to the African nation to face justice earned enough signatures to get a response from the Obama administration.

Bronkhorst moreover told the Telegraph in that Palmer’s party never intended to hunt on the farmland where Cecil was killed, which is adjacent to a national park.

Muchinguri said the Prosecutor General had started the process to have 55-year-old extradited from the. “At this point in time, however, multiple efforts to contact Dr. Walter Palmer have been unsuccessful”, said Edward Grace, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s deputy chief of law enforcement.

Lawyer Alec Muchadehama told Reuters that no American had been extradited to Zimbabwe since the treaty was signed, adding that Harare faced legal and political hurdles.

Cecil was a wild lion in Zimbabwe popular with locals and tourists.

Muchinguri said that there was also much outcry in Zimbabwe and that almost 500,000 people via Facebook had called for Palmer’s extradition.

The U.S. embassy in Harare said it did not comment on extradition matters as a matter of policy.

‘We had obtained the permit for bow hunting, we had obtained the permit for the lion from the council, ‘ Bronkhorst, who is due to stand trial on August 5, said.

The hunt is meanwhile said to have exposed financial difficulties facing Zimbabwe’s wildlife conservation authority as official figures show trophy hunting generates some 40 million U.S. dollars annually for the country. Only two lions were illegally killed last year, he said.

Professional hunter Theo Bronkhorst, who led the hunt, appeared in court on Wednesday, but while farmer Honest Ndlovu also went to court that day, he wasn’t charged.