Zimbabwe will not charge American dentist Walter Palmer for the July killing of Cecil, its most prized lion, because he had obtained legal authority to conduct the hunt, a cabinet minister said on Monday.
Palmer, a lifelong big-game hunter from Minnesota, stoked global controversy when he killed Cecil, a rare black-maned lion, with a bow and arrow outside Hwange National Park in western Zimbabwe.
However, Zimbabwe’s environment minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri said that Palmer’s hunting papers were in order at the time of the incident. Consequently, he could not be charged.
“We approached the police and then the prosecutor general, and it turned out that Palmer came to Zimbabwe because all the papers were in order,” Mr Muchinguri-Kashiri told reporters.
Mr Muchinguri-Kashiri said that Palmer is free to visit Zimbabwe as a tourist but not as a hunter.
Charges
Two more people still face charges related to Cecil’s killing. Both are accused of using bait to lure Cecil out of his habitat in Hwange National Park so that he could be killed.
Theo Bronkhorst, a professional hunter in Zimbabwe, is charged with breaching hunting rules in connection with the hunt in which Cecil was killed.
A game park owner is also charged with allowing an illegal hunt.
Both have denied the charges.
Mr Bronkhorst is expected to appear in a Hwange court on Thursday, where a magistrate will rule on a request by his lawyers that his indictment be quashed.
Mr Palmer (55) has previously said that the hunt was legal and no one in the hunting party realised the targeted lion was Cecil, a well-known tourist attraction in the park.
Reuters