Cape Town | Thursday
TWO Slovakian wildlife smugglers, found guilty in the Atlantis Regional Court last week of illegally collecting suitcases full of tortoises on the Cape’s West Coast, on Wednesday received fines totalling R168 000 each.
The two men, Martin Kyskyn and Martin Juricek, both 27, were found guilty on Wednesday last week on three charges of hunting, possessing and transporting the distinctively-marked angulate tortoises without permits.
Passing sentence this Wednesday, Magistrate Andre Ferreira told the pair: ”You are ruthless smugglers with no regard for the protection of our endangered fauna.”
Kyskyn was also found guilty of offering a $500 bribe to the policeman who arrested them as they were collecting the tortoises along the roadside near Lambert’s Bay on November 14.
On this charge, Ferreira sentenced him to an additional fine of R5 000 or one year in prison.
Senior Cape Nature Conservation (CNC) official Fanie Bekker said after sentence was passed that he was ”very satisfied with the outcome”, although another official said the ”substantial” fines the pair received were less than the CNC had expected.
On the charge of collecting wildlife without a permit, Kyskin and Juricek each received a sentences of a R10 000 fine or one year in prison, plus a R150 000 fine related to the value of the tortoises.
On the second and third charges of possessing and transporting the reptiles, they were sentenced to a fine of R5 000 or six months, and R3 000 or six months respectively.
Ferreirra said the court could have imposed a fine of up to three times the market value of the wildlife collected. Evidence in the case was that the 113 tortoises would fetch from $300 to $800 each on foreign markets, depending on size and condition.
This could have seen the pair receiving fines of R900 000 each.
However, he told the two men he had refrained from making examples of them, but said ”this sentence will serve as a warning, and I hope it will serve as a deterrent”.
”You are people who are not welcome in our country — we have enough problems of our own. I am going to recommend you be permanently prohibited from returning to South Africa.”
He said the court had taken into account that both men were first offenders.
”The court was of the opinion that a fine might be the most appropriate sentence in these circumstances.”
The pair have been held in custody since November 14 because they are considered a ”flight risk”
On their arrest, Kyskyn and Juricek were discovered to be holding two passports each. The documents show that between them the two men have made trips to Indonesia, Mauritius, Madagascar and Peru since the beginning of last year.
During the trial last week, Kyskyn claimed they had collected the tortoises to play a practical joke by dumping them en masse on the Vredendal golf course one night.
”We wanted to call this project ‘Golf Safari’,” he said, speaking through a translator.
Passing sentence, Ferreira said: ”I cannot ignore the fact that the court found your story to be highly improbable, yet you still persisted that the tortoises were collected for a prank.”
Before handing down the heavy fines, he told the accused that the court’s experience of people who dealt illegally in exotic species was ”that they usually have access to thousands of rands”.
”You both seem to have the ability to travel to exotic destinations.”
When they were arrested last month, the two men had suitcases crammed with tortoises in their rented car, and other tortoises stuffed into odd socks and cloth bags.
Several of the bags, apparently used in other collecting trips, had ”Chlamydosaurus kingi” scrawled on them in felt-tip pen. This is the Latin name of the Australian Frilled Lizard, which is also found in Indonesia, and is much sought after by collectors.
Giving evidence at the sentencing, CNC official Paul Gildenhuys told the court that of the world’s 40 species of land tortoises, 12 were indigenous to South Africa.
”This makes the Western Cape the richest in tortoises in the world, including some of the rarest and smallest. It is for this exact reason that people come here to collect them.”
He said that according to United States Humane Society figures, illegal international trade in exotic species of wild plants and animals totalled between $10-billion and $20-billion in 1996.
”Now it would be two to three times that figure,” Gildenhuys said.
Referring to tortoises, he said ”many are worth far more, pound for pound, than illegal drugs”.
”The rarer an animal, the more collectors will pay — this is the incentive for wildlife smugglers.”
He said illegal wildlife smugglers were guilty of ”raping nature”.- Sapa
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