{Nine Tanzanians have been charged in connection with the murder of a British conservationist whose helicopter was shot down while he chased suspected poachers, a senior prosecutor has said.}<\/p>\n
Roger Gower, 37, died when suspected poachers gunned down his helicopter during a patrol of the Maswa game reserve in northern Tanzania, close to the Serengeti national park, on 29 January.<\/p>\n
Photographs of the crashed helicopter show twisted metal, apparent bullet holes in the fuselage and smears of blood on the pilot\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n
Without a solution to the poaching crisis, the death of conservationists will continue
\nBen Fogle
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\n\u201cFour of them are charged with murder, while others face charges of economic sabotage and unlawful possession of firearms,\u201d senior government prosecutor Yamiko Mlekana told AFP by phone on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The four men charged with murder have not yet entered any plea, as their case will be tried in the high court. The other five will be tried in a lower court.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the accused pleaded guilty to being in unlawful possession of firearms and elephant tusks, while others denied the charge,\u201d Mlekana said.<\/p>\n
Gower, who worked for the Friedkin Conservation Fund, had been tracking poachers after spotting the carcasses of recently killed elephants.<\/p>\n
‘Total of five people arrested’ over killing of British pilot in Tanzania
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\nIt is estimated that more than 30,000 elephants are killed for their tusks every year across Africa.<\/p>\n
Their ivory is prized for jewellery and decorative objects and much of it is smuggled to China, where many increasingly wealthy shoppers are buying ivory trinkets as a sign of financial success.<\/p>\n
Tanzania\u2019s natural resources and tourism minister, Jumanne Maghembe, this week announced the government would set up a special task force for anti-poaching operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoaching is now done using sophisticated machinery and heavy weapons including AK-47s,\u201d Maghembe said. \u201cWe are going to set up a force comprising different security forces and the army.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source:The Guardian:[Nine charged over Tanzania murder of British conservationist->http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/feb\/11\/nine-charged-tanzania-murder-british-conservationst-roger-gower-]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Nine Tanzanians have been charged in connection with the murder of a British conservationist whose helicopter was shot down while he chased suspected poachers, a senior prosecutor has said.} Roger Gower, 37, died when suspected poachers gunned down his helicopter during a patrol of the Maswa game reserve in northern Tanzania, close to the Serengeti […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000072120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[99],"byline":[234],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-justice","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-the-guardian"],"bylines":[{"id":234,"name":"The Guardian","slug":"the-guardian","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":78}],"contributors":[{"id":234,"name":"The Guardian","slug":"the-guardian","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":78}],"featured_image":{"id":2000072120,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23154.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23154.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23154.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23154.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23154.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23154.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000072120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23154"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23154"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}