Nairobi - A Kenyan court Friday convicted ivory smuggling kingpin Feisal Ali Mohammed and sentenced him to 20 years in prison for possessing more than 400 pieces of ivory worth almost half a million dollars.
Kenya Wildlife Service celebrated the “landmark ruling” as “a strong message to all networks of poaching gangs, ivory smugglers, financiers, middlemen and shippers.”
The service said on Twitter it was a “resounding guilty verdict” that is a “tough warning to poaching gangs and their financiers.”
Mohammed's ivory was confiscated in 2014 in a warehouse in the coastal city of Mombasa.
According to the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), some 35 000 tusked animals were killed on the continent in 2015 alone. The total elephant population on the continent is between 400 000 and 500 000.
In April, President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire to 105 tons of ivory and more than a ton of rhino horn in a ceremony aimed at highlighting the plight of the East African nation's endangered wildlife. The pile was valued at around 150 million dollars.
In addition to his sentence, Mohammed also was fined 200 000 dollars.
DPA