POLOKWANE – The case against Dawie Groenewald, alleged rhino horn syndicate kingpin, and 10 others was again postponed by the Gauteng North high court in Pretoria on Monday.
Nearly four years after the much-publicised arrest of the group, comprising Groenewald and his wife, Sariëtte, two veterinarians, the wife of one of the veterinarians and an employer of the other, three professional hunters, a helicopter pilot and a farm worker, the court case has provisionally been postponed for another year to August 4, 2015. The prosecutor, after consultation with the judge president and the defence agreed that the trial be postponed pending the outcomes of another matter regarding hunting legislation and pending the completion of a civil application.
The group, implicated in illegal trade in rhino horn and racketeering faces 1 872 charges. They were allegedly involved in a syndicate that killed rhinos and traded the horns.
More than 200 witnesses are expected to be called in the case and the criminal indictment is more than 700 pages long. Groenewald himself apparently faces 1 736 counts of racketeering, money laundering, fraud, intimidation, illegal hunting and dealing in rhino horns.
He is accused of killing 95 of his own rhinos for their horns and burying or burning their carcasses. He is also accused of selling around 20 carcasses to a local butcher in Musina. He also allegedly illegally dehorned rhinos and sold at least 384 rhino horns over a four-year period.
The investigation into the case already began on July 9, 2009 and the alleged syndicate was apprehended more than a year later.
• Julian Rademeyer in his book Killing for Profit tells how Groenewald bought rhinos from SANParks and sold them for profit.
