Rhino Poaching: Arrests, Prosecutions & Sentencing

[Richprins]

They don't think far ahead, Lis, very primitive and fatalistic...

[Lisbeth]

Just like the politicians and civil servants

[Richprins]

Chaos at Skukuza Regional Court amid alleged illegal instruction

Naomi Engelbrecht, the regional court president of Mpumalanga, gave an instruction that future court cases be heard in the Hazyview Magistrate's Court.
24 hours ago
Buks Viljoen

Chaos reigned in the corridors of the regional court here last week after a seemingly illegal instruction was given to move all the sittings to the Hazyview Magistrate’s Court.

This instruction was issued by Naomi Engelbrecht, the regional court president (RCP) of Mpumalanga.

This is the second time in five years that Engelbrecht has taken a decision that the regional court in Skukuza be closed.


According to her instructions, the court cases, of which the bulk are related to rhino poaching, will in future be held in Hazyview.

The instruction came in the same week in which at least 10 rhinos were killed in the Kruger National Park (KNP).

In 2020, Engelbrecht engaged in a head-on confrontation with the former judge president, Francis Legodi, when she also issued instructions that the Skukuza Regional Court must be moved to Mhala Magistrate’s Court.

Skukuza is the main hub where most of the rhino poaching-related cases are heard.


At the time, the decision was met with serious objections, not only from environmental organisations, but also the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the ministers of justice and environmental affairs, the police and SANParks.

The matter caused major conflict between Engelbrecht and Legodi when she bluntly refused to reverse her decision.

Early last week she once again gave instructions that all regional court cases must in future be heard in Hazyview.

Massive confusion erupted last Thursday when the regional court prosecutor, Adv Abednigo Mgiba, all the accused, witnesses and legal teams were sitting in Skukuza, while the magistrate, Mbongeni Ngobeni, was in Hazyview.

Ngobeni told the legal teams he was there on instruction of the RCP.


When told that everybody should come to Hazyview, all the legal teams, as well as the accused who were out on bail, refused to do so. The police also refused to take the accused who were in custody to Hazyview.

Eventually it was agreed upon that all the cases would be postponed, in absentia, until Thursday March 13.


Last week Friday March 7, an emergency meeting was held between SANParks representatives, NPA members and Judge Segopotje Sheila Mphahlele, the judge president of Mpumalanga.

UPDATE |

The instruction by Naomi Engelbrecht, the regional court president of Mpumalanga, to transfer criminal cases, most of them in relation to rhino poaching, from the Skukuza Regional Court to Hazyview, has exploded in her face.

Lowvelder has obtained information that Judge Segopotje Sheila Mphahlele, the judge president of Mpumalanga, had already issued a directive on March 6 in which she indicated that no cases can be transferred from Skukuza to Hazyview.
“All criminal matters that have been transferred from the regional court sitting in Skukuza to Hazyview shall be transferred back,” Mphahlele wrote in the directive which Lowvelder studied.
She said these cases will be “dealt with and finalised in Skukuza.
“No matters shall be transferred from Skukuza to Hazyview, or any other court, without authorisation by this office.”
The judge president also made it clear that this instruction will remain in place until revoked or amended in writing by her office.

https://www.citizen.co.za/lowvelder/new ... NGO59eQPgg

[Lisbeth]

Again! and she is still a judge

I probably asked the same question five years ago: WHY?

What's the difference between the regional court president of Mpumalanga and the judge president of Mpumalanga? Obviously the latter is on a step higher than the other. Are there more than one regional court president in Mpumalanga

[Richprins]

No idea why, and don't know what a regional president is?

[Lisbeth]

I'll ask Google

[Lisbeth]

ANALYSIS: BATTLE OF SKUKUZA

‘Belligerent’ magistrate again ordered to back off on Kruger Park wildlife crimes court shutdown


Illustrative image | Dutch students process a fake crime scene of a poached rhino during their training at the Wildlife Forensics Academy in Yzerfontein. (Photo: Kim Ludbrook / EPA-EFE) | Naomi Engelbrecht. (Photo: judiciary.org.za) | Dunstan Mlambo. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla / Gallo Images / Daily Maverick) | Judge President Segopotje Sheila Mphahlele. (Photo: judiciary.org.za) | Judge Frans Legodi.(Photo: udges Matter)



By Tony Carnie | 10 Apr 2025

What lies behind the persistent attempts to shut down or curtail the operations of the Skukuza Regional Court, which has achieved remarkable success in bringing rhino poachers to justice?
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The Battle of Skukuza began as a simple legal disagreement about which court buildings can be used to try rhino killers in South Africa. It soon degenerated into a battle royale between two judicial “elephants”; the younger one characterised as belligerent and disrespectful, the elder as pleading, humble and patient.

The result was that the two elephants locked tusks and the judicial grass around Mpumalanga was trampled and potentially “poisoned”, leading to a situation in which senior magistrates were uncertain about which elephant to listen to — and who was in charge of the administration of justice in Mpumalanga province.

The more vexing question, lurking in the background, is what lies behind the persistent attempts to shut down or curtail the operations of the Skukuza Regional Court, a dedicated wildlife crimes court that has achieved remarkable success in bringing rhino poachers to justice over the past eight years.

It was originally established as a periodical court in 1963, close to the main camp in Kruger National Park. In March 2017, it was upgraded to a periodical regional court, at a time when South Africa’s rhinos were being slaughtered by poachers at a rate of more than 1,000 every year — mainly in the country’s flagship wildlife park.


Section Ranger Neels Van Wyk inspects a three-day-old carcass of a poached rhino on 8 November 2014 at the Kruger National Park. (Photo: Gallo Images / Sunday Times / James Oatway)

At the time, the then environmental affairs minister, Edna Molewa, welcomed the establishment of the dedicated rhino court inside the park, noting that it would help to ensure faster turnaround times for horn poaching cases. According to a South African National Parks (SANParks) annual report, the Skukuza Regional Court had achieved a 97% conviction rate by 2021 and handed out stiff jail terms to convicted horn poachers.

More recently, in November 2024, Skukuza’s dedicated regional court prosecutor, advocate Abednigo Lott Mgiba, was honoured with the “best environmental crimes prosecutor” award by the national Department of Environmental Affairs after finalising more than 70 recent cases in the court and achieving a 100% conviction rate — mainly for rhino poaching crimes.

Given this enviable track record, why have there been repeated, recent attempts to close the court down or reduce the number of cases heard in Skukuza, when the legitimacy of the court was established emphatically by three high court judges in April 2020?

‘Junior elephant’

Enter the “junior elephant”, Naomi Annette Engelbrecht, the regional court president (RCP) of Mpumalanga, who has repeatedly defied directives from two Judge Presidents to ensure that the court be kept open. As the senior official in charge of regional court magistrates in that province, Engelbrecht has attempted several times to shut down the court entirely or reduce its regional court status to channel cases to courts outside the park.

In doing so, she defied several written directives from two former Mpumalanga Judge Presidents, Dunstan Mlambo and Frans Legodi, by arguing that Skukuza had not been legally proclaimed as “a place for the holding of a court”.

In subsequent verbal and written exchanges with Judge President Legodi, Engelbrecht pretty much told him to take a hike. She was in charge of magistrates in the province, she said, and would not adhere to Legodi’s directives or those of his predecessor on the question of Skukuza. She also instructed at least two senior magistrates to disregard Legodi’s directives on Skukuza.

In an email exchange at the end of November 2019, Legodi informed Engelbrecht that he had instructed regional magistrates Theron and Lesufi not to remove any matters from the Skukuza court roll.

Victimisation

To emphasise his point, Legodi stated: “You are therefore requested not to give them contrary instructions or threaten them with victimisation”, as any instruction to the contrary would be added to the complaints sent to the Magistrates Commission, the state body tasked with suspending or removing magistrates from office (among other responsibilities).


Extract from Legodi’s letter

Eventually, Legodi (as the most senior judicial official in Mpumalanga) requested that a Full Bench of the province’s high court conduct a special review after Engelbrecht had refused an application by State prosecutors to transfer several poaching cases back to the Skukuza court.

In their special review judgment, the three justices (Bernard Ngoepe, Cynthia Pretorius and Thando Mankge) castigated Engelbrecht, describing her conduct as unbecoming for such a senior justice official, who had been openly defiant of Judge President Legodi. In rejecting Legodi’s requests and instructions, she had used language that was “inappropriate, disrespectful and unnecessarily belligerent”.

That was not all.

The three judges found that Engelbrecht’s conduct had the potential to “poison” relations between two of the most senior justice officials in the province and had resulted in “actual and potential harm” to the administration of justice in Mpumalanga.




Extracts from the special review judgment.

As a further mark of their displeasure, the three judges ordered that a copy of their judgment be forwarded to the Magistrates Commission, noting that it should not be the business of judicial officers to go around shutting courts, as this could amount to obstructing justice.

Unsuccessful appeals

Engelbrecht appealed against this judgment (unsuccessfully) all the way to the Constitutional Court, which in February 2021 dismissed her appeal as lacking any reasonable prospect of success.

That, most observers might think, settled the matter.

Yet, as reported by veteran Lowvelder journalist Buks Viljoen, the continued operation of the Skukuza court was cast into doubt once more last month, with renewed attempts to transfer cases or reduce the frequency of court hearings at Skukuza.

Responding to queries from the Daily Maverick, Kruger National Park spokesperson Ike Phaahla said it recently came to the attention of SANParks that court hearings at Skukuza would be reduced to just one day a week from 6 March and that this was a result of “an instruction from the RCP” (Engelbrecht).

Phaahla said he had “no idea” why these instructions had been given, further noting that SANParks had not been consulted about the instruction.

In an attempt to clarify this and several other issues concerning the Skukuza court, Daily Maverick has made repeated efforts since 28 March to contact Engelbrecht for comment via her email address, landline numbers and cellphone, but she has not responded.


(Image Supplied)

New directive

Now, it has emerged that the current Mpumalanga Judge President, Segopotje Sheila Mphahlele, found it necessary to issue a new directive instructing Engelbrecht that any cases that had been transferred from Skukuza to the Hazyview court should be transferred back to Skukuza. This court should also continue to hear cases twice a week.

In the latest directive of 8 March, addressed to Engelbrecht, the chief magistrate and the director of public prosecutions for Mpumalanga, the Judge President further emphasised, “No matters shall be transferred from Skukuza to Hazyview or any other court seat without authorisation of this office” and that her directive would remain in force unless revoked or amended in writing.

So, for now at least, it seems to be back to business at the Skukuza court.

Yet, given the protracted history of this affair, the latest attempt to shut down or downgrade this court has raised several questions about Engelbrecht’s motives and behaviour, the answers to which are likely to remain a matter of speculation unless Engelbrecht elects to clarify them publicly.

‘Not a good venue’

Interestingly, just hours after Daily Maverick sent questions to the Magistrates Commission on 24 March (and copied to the Magistrates Matter contact site), we received an email message from Vanja Karth, the head of the University of Cape Town’s Democratic Governance & Rights Unit, indicating that she believed that, for practical reasons, Skukuza was “not a good venue for trials”.

In the email thread of her message, she had indicated to four legal sector colleagues that she had “just had a 30 min chat to Naomi” and was happy to discuss the Skukuza issue with Daily Maverick.

When we contacted her soon afterwards to elaborate, Karth said the Skukuza court was a “tiny building” located on the same property as the local police station.

“You have to pay park fees and hire transport from the gate,” as it was not possible to walk to the court because of the risk of being attacked by lions and other dangerous wildlife, she said.

There were, therefore, access-to-justice issues, she stated, further noting that as Skukuza was not a permanent court, it was necessary to transport court staff such as clerks, interpreters and stenographers from other courts, which could entail additional petrol/transport costs.

There was only one “box” (dock) for accused suspects, so if there were six or eight accused in court, there was no space for the public to be seated.

Karth said there were also concerns about the security of magistrates, as they had to share toilets with the public.

“The only people who benefit [from the location of Skukuza court] are SANParks,” said Karth, adding that it was not a “neutral or unbiased space” for accused persons.

Karth said another issue was that Skukuza was not a full-service court with bail payment facilities, so suspects or their representatives would have to drive to Mbombela if they were granted bail.

In a subsequent email message to Daily Maverick, Karth provided photographs of the interior of the court while clarifying a previous statement to indicate that suspects did not have to pay park entrance fees if they showed bail receipts and also stating that there was no internet connection at Skukuza.


The Skukuza Regional Court. (Photo: Supplied)

“So I think the real question is: why is there such an urgent push to keep using a court that is clearly inadequate when there are full-service courts in close proximity? What is the value, and to whom, to insist on the continued use of Skukuza?”

(Several legal officials have said privately that rangers often face intimidation when giving evidence in courts outside the park and have to travel through areas where rhino poaching syndicates operate. Senior Hawks investigator Lieutenant Colonel Leroy Bruwer, who was investigating several high-profile rhino poaching cases, was murdered by gunmen in March 2020 while travelling to work in Mbombela.)

However, as we pointed out in our subsequent request for comment to Engelbrecht, it was not clear whether the criticisms above reflected Karth’s or Engelbrecht’s views.

Legal arguments

Nor do some of the criticisms entirely chime with arguments previously raised on Engelbrecht’s behalf during the special review hearing in 2020.

The three justices emphasised that arguments in the review case were almost entirely confined to points of law about the gazetting and proclamation of Skukuza by the minister of justice, although Engelbrecht or her legal representatives did provide insights into some of the reasons for her opposition to the Skukuza court location and logistical concerns.

For example, Engelbrecht is quoted in the review judgment stating that some of her magistrates were “scared to go to court” at Skukuza.

Commenting on alleged logistical and other challenges at Skukuza, the three judges remarked, “In passing, we mention that some complaints were raised by the attorneys who opposed the State’s application for the transfer of the matters to the Skukuza court for trial, such as the small size of the court, inconvenience to the public and the lack of effective air-conditioning system.

“Apparently, both the RCP and the Chief Magistrate view serving at that court as an inconvenience. It might be so; but let us remind ourselves, if a reminder is needed, that periodical courts are not necessarily there to suite [sic] the convenience of judicial officers or practitioners, but to reach people out there. There is a disturbing statement in [regional court prosecutor Ansie Venter’s] affidavit that the RCP stopped the regional court from sitting at Skukuza as a result of request(s) by the attorneys.”

Significantly, the judges also recorded that it was the legal counsel for several wildlife crime suspects who argued the review case on behalf of Engelbrecht — and that the minister of justice and correctional services, the minister of the environment, forestry and fisheries, SANParks and the office of the director of public prosecutions all argued against Engelbrecht’s views, which she had set out in a 167-page affidavit.

Daily Maverick was not able to establish the exact nature of the crimes allegedly committed by these suspects, but did confirm that at least one of them (former SANParks employee Blues Excellent Shabangu) was arrested in April 2014 for allegedly hunting and killing a white rhino in Kruger National Park.

Later, when Engelbrecht and legal representatives for the alleged wildlife offenders applied for leave to appeal, the three high court judges commented, “In any event, an accused person does not have the luxury to choose at which court building they should be tried. As long as the crime was committed within the relevant magisterial district of the court, it remains the prerogative of the State to choose which court building; whether or not the court building has an effective air­ conditioning system, or whether the road to that court is dirt or bumpy in relation to the court building they prefer.”

Legodi’s complaint

Finally, there is the question of what happened to Judge President Legodi’s complaint to the Magistrates Commission and the stinging judgment by the three judges who heard the special review case five years ago.

The short answer is: Nothing.

In response to our queries, the Magistrates Commission confirmed that it received a copy of the judgment soon after delivery, but it deferred any action until Engelbrecht’s appeals to other judicial bodies were concluded.

“Thereafter, at its meeting held in October 2022, the Ethics Committee [of the commission] considered the matter and closed the file after Judge President Legodi indicated that he has no intentions to pursue the matter,” the commission said in a statement to Daily Maverick on 4 April.

The commission also provided a copy of a formal letter sent by the commission head, Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba, to Legodi in November 2022, shortly before Ledwaba retired as Judge President of Mpumalanga. In the letter, Ledwaba referred to a telephone call he had with Legodi the previous month, “during which you indicated to me that you do not wish to pursue the matter”.

Shortly afterwards, the commission’s Ethics Committee resolved to “close the file” on Engelbrecht. DM

[Lisbeth]

All this seems to be only a "Much Ado About Nothing"

[Richprins]

Ja, I know Buks very well, and he does great work!

The arguments that FINALLY arrived that the courts at Skuks are insufficient seem fine. Why did it take years to give the answer?

[Lisbeth]

Give her a finger and she wants the whole hand Some people have an insane thirst for power.