Four charged over death of pygmy elephant

KOTA KINABALU: Four people have been charged in court for offences related to the death of a protected pygmy elephant in Sungai Udin, Dumpas, Tawau, recently.

The carcass was found riddled with more than 70 bullet wounds.

One of the four suspects, an estate operator, was charged with failure to hand over two elephant tusks to authorities following the Sept 25 incident.

Yesterday, the accused, Jaifol Liun, 52, pleaded not guilty to the charge under the Wildlife Act 1997 read before Tawau Sessions Court judge Awang Krisnada Awang Mahmud.

The charge mentioned that he committed the offence at about 2am on Oct 2 at the Kg Felda Umas supervisors quarters.

He is accused of failing to produce the tusks of the protected species to authorities and could be fined up to RM50,000 or jailed up to two years, or both upon conviction.

The judge ordered for his case to be re-mentioned on Dec 11 at the same court and allowed him a RM7,000 bail in two sureties and to have his international passport surrendered.

Jaifol is also required to report himself to the Tawau Wildlife Department once every two weeks and is not allowed to tamper with any prosecution witnesses.

The other three, Paranchoi Nordin, 58, Abdullah Simin, 68, and Martin Alok, 44, will be brought to court tomorrow to face the same charge of not handing over the elephant tusks.

Parachoi and Abdullah were earlier charged under the Firearms Act and is serving their two-year jail sentence while Martin was earlier charged under the Immigration Act and is serving his two-month jail sentence.

The three pleaded guilty for these charges on Oct 22.