This story has been updated with additional information.
Harare - Three South Africans arrested near Beit Bridge last Friday in connection with attempting to use an “undesignated” crossing point were allegedly assisting police on Tuesday with information about the importation of sable from Zambia last month.
The three were arrested after they were allegedly found with 29 sable on board their truck in the middle of the dry Limpopo River which borders the two countries. The South Africans' truck was stuck in the sand.
Edwin Hewitt, 49, Hendricks Blignaut 41, and John Pretorius, 49, from the Limpopo province near the Zimbabwe border who bought sable from Zambia, are in the remand prison in Beit Bridge after they were refused bail in the Magistrate's Court on Saturday.
A Zimbabwean man, so far only identified as Thebani was arrested on Monday in connection with allegations that he met the South Africans in Bulawayo and then went on to give them advice on how to export the sable from Zimbabwe. Lawyers in Beit Bridge say they expect Thebani to appear in court Wednesday.
Police sources say that Hewitt has been traveling with police from Beit Bridge to Victoria Falls and to Hwange all day Tuesday allegedly mapping out the route the sable travelled after they arrived in Zimbabwe from Zambia.
The deal to import sable was facilitated by Zimbabwe professional hunter Theo Bronkhorst, the man accused of arranging an “illegal” hunt which killed Cecil the Lion early July.
Police in Zimbabwe say they will charge him for being an accomplice to wildlife smuggling and for moving animals without a permit.
Bronkhorst's advocate Perpetua Dube said: “I have been waiting for the police all day to give me the particulars of the charge against my client. He will have to be charged or released on Wednesday.”
Bronkhorst told police that he imported sable from Zambia last month for himself and for the three South African game farmers in a deal he arranged in Zambia over a long period. He says the sable he imported for himself remain at his small game farm in northern Zimbabwe, and that he knows nothing of what the South Africans did with the animals they bought into Zimbabwe from Zambia.
Three sable among the 29 bought by the South Africans have since died from dehydration according to wildlife sources in Zimbabwe and the survivors are being held in a boma on a farm known as Nottingham Estate, in Zimbabwe.
Police say the South Africans had a veterinary permit to take the sable from Zambia through Zimbabwe.
Bronkhorst was arrested on Monday when he reported to police as he has to each week in terms of bail conditions in the Cecil case. He goes on trial on September 28 at the Magistrate's Court near the Hwange National Park close to where Cecil was shot dead in early July by Walter Palmer, an American dentist.
Editor’s update: IOL can confirm one of the South Africans mentioned in this story, Edwin Hewitt, was not convicted on any charges in South Africa or Zimbabwe. (12 June 2023)
Independent Foreign Service