Jakarta Globe, Nurdin Hasan, Apr 16, 2014
Banda Aceh.
Police in Aceh have arrested another six people for allegedly killing a
Sumatran elephant for its tusks, bringing to 12 the number of suspected
poachers nabbed in the case.
Adj. Sr.
Comr. Faisal Rivai, the police chief in West Aceh district, said on Wednesday
that the latest suspects were arrested on Tuesday in separate locations based
on information from the six already in custody since Saturday.
He said the
suspects, accused of killing a male elephant earlier this month, claimed they
were not after the tusks initially.
“They
confessed to killing the elephant because a herd of elephants had been
destroying their crops,” Faisal told the Jakarta Globe.
He said it
was only after the elephant was killed that they hacked off its tusks and sold
it to a fence in Southwest Aceh district. Faisal said police had identified the
suspected fence and were now looking for him.
Police on
Tuesday announced that they had arrested six residents of Teupin Panah village
in West Aceh for their alleged roles in killing the male elephant and two
others, in Blangpidie in Southwest Aceh district and in Seumantok village in
West Aceh.
They are
accused of setting up booby traps to kill the endangered animals, then selling
their tusks to the fence in Southwest Aceh.
One of
those arrested on Tuesday, Hamdani, told reporters at the West Aceh Police
headquarters that the ivory was not their main motivation for killing the
elephant.
“Lots of
residents have lost their crops to the herd of elephants. We’ve reported it
many times to the authorities, but there’s never been any attempt to shoo away
the elephants,” he said.
Police have
charged all 12 suspects under the 1990 Natural Resources Conservation Law that
could see them sentenced to up to 12 years in prison if convicted.
Genman
Suhefti Hasibuan, the head of the Aceh Natural Resources Conservation Agency,
or BKSDA, welcomed the arrest of the suspected poachers but warned of the
potential for even more human-elephant conflicts in the province as the
animals’ habitat was cleared for farmland.
“There needs
to be a concerted effort from all sides — from the local authorities, the BKSDA
and the residents — to resolve these human-elephant conflicts,” he told the
Globe. “If we don’t do that, the conflicts will keep happening.”
Genman said
his agency had recorded 20 incidents of elephants encroaching onto farms or
villages in Aceh in the past three months, multiple times in some places.
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