How court ruled against most wanted notorious poacher in Tanzania’s history

Image result for Boniface Mathew MaliangoBoniface Mathew Maliango, who had numerous aliases that included Shetani Hana
Huruma (Merciless Devil) was a man described as the most wanted and notorious poacher in Tanzania’s history.

Upon his arrest and conviction with two others who included his own younger
brother, Lucas Mathayo Maliango, and a third accomplice, Abdallah Ally Chaoga, they were
given 12 years in jail.Image result for elephant poaching results

The court heard that Milango’s crime involved the attempt to smuggle 118 elephant tusks valued
at $885,000 (about Sh1.8 billion).
Apart from the 12 jail term, the magistrate also ordered the confiscation of the convicts’
three vehicles, including a Mitsubishi Canter, which is said to have had hidden, in its
chassis, a metal box which Maliango used to hide his ivory pieces.

Image result for Boniface Mathew Maliango

Two days after the judgment, a local weekend paper, The Citizen on Sunday, carried a detailed
report on Maliango’s exploits in the realm of poaching that included how a famous US actor,
Leonardo Dicaprio had portrayed Boniface Mathew Maliango alias the Devil in a film titled, the
‘Ivory Game’.
The Citizen report showed that apart from evading arrest in Tanzania more than seven times,
Maliango controlled 15 poaching networks in Tanzania, Mozambique, southern Kenya, Burundi
and Zambia.Image result for Boniface Mathew Maliango
Going by the content of the newspaper report, Maliango could rightly be described as a man who
had literally controlled the destiny of elephants in the belly of the African Continent.
And that brings us to the 12- year sentence imposed by the Dodoma magistrate on Maliango and
co.
The question that immediately comes to mind is: was the 12- year jail term commensurate with the
loss the convicts caused through poaching?Image result for Boniface Mathew Maliango

The 118 elephant tusks found on Maliango represent the death of 59 elephants, quite a substantial
herd, much as it is not clear where the killed animals came from.
However, if Tanzanians were interested in knowing the elephants’ origins, it wouldn’t be difficult.
Today we have DNA test technology which can easily give them the answer to that question.
One thing is, however, crystal clear. The Selous Game Reserve has been the most poached
protected area in Tanzania.Image result for elephant poaching results
And Maliango, being a Tanzanian, must have honed his skills in the infamous industry through his
involvement in poaching first in Tanzania before spreading his tentacles to other parts of East and
Central Africa.
But if we are all agreed that Maliango’s poaching skills were forged in the crucible of Tanzania, then
that part of Tanzania must have been the Selous Game Reserve which, in 1976, had 110,000.
However, by 2014, it had its elephant population reduced by 90 per cent, through industrial
poaching, from 110,000 to 15,000!
Much as some of us may not be lawyers, the foregoing narrative is one of the issues that the
the honourable magistrate ought to have taken into account before handing down Maliango and two others a mere 12 years of incarceration.

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