Game ranger’s nine-year wait to tell his poaching story foiled at airport

● Lawrence Munro waited nine years for his day in court. For the game ranger that day arrived this week, only for him to be thwarted at the last minute.

Munro was planning to travel the 2,500km from Malawi, where he now works, to SA to testify in a case against three alleged rhino poachers he arrested in 2009.

Muntugokwakhe Khoza and two other men allegedly shot a white rhino and hacked off its horns in the Hluhluwe Imfolozi Game Reserve on August 26 2009.

Khoza and three accomplices were arrested by Munro a few hours later, a short distance from the reserve.

According to the state, a .303 rifle and two freshly severed rhino horns were found in the men’s bakkie.

DNA samples linked the horns to a butchered rhino in the reserve.

At the time, Munro was an anti-poaching officer for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, the state’s conservation organisation in KwaZulu-Natal. He left three years ago to work in Malawi.

On Wednesday, Munro drove 300km to Lilongwe airport to fly to SA to testify in the trial. He was told that his ticket, booked by SA’s justice department, had not been confirmed.

Khoza, 49, Mduduzi Xulu, 50, and Ayanda Buthelezi, 39, have pleaded not guilty in the Richards Bay regional court to several charges concerning the 2009 poaching case.

Since the trial began, a fourth suspect, Sifiso Ngema, has absconded.

Munro was not the only witness who was absent. The investigating officer, Terry Louw, has emigrated to Australia and other witnesses have disappeared or are too ill to testify.

The three accused have changed attorneys several times, prolonging the trial because new attorneys have had to be briefed and court hearings rescheduled.

While Khoza was out on bail for his alleged role in the 2009 Hluhluwe Imfolozi poaching, he was arrested at a police roadblock in March 2013 near Vryheid. A pair of rhino horns were found in his car. He was convicted and sentenced to six years in jail in March 2014.

This week, Khoza, Xulu and Buthelezi appeared before magistrate Logan Naidoo.

Yvette Claassen, a former police captain and forensics expert, who drove from Mpumalanga to testify, was asked one question by Xulu’s defence counsel, Vusi Ndlovu. State advocate Yuri Gangai apologised to Claassen that she had given up her time and travelled so far to answer a single question, remarking that it appeared to have been a waste of her time and taxpayers’ money.

Ndlovu said Gangai’s remark had been uncalled for, but the magistrate Naidoo responded: “That’s your opinion.”

The court was also told that the original investigating officer, Louw, had offered to travel from Australia to testify provided his travel costs and expenses were covered.

The new investigating officer, Anton Steenberg, said there were concerns about the mounting costs of the trial, with Munro’s tickets alone costing more than R30,000.

The case will proceed August 27.