The Environmental Case Law Index is a collection of judgments from 10 African countries on topics relating to environmental law, both substantive and procedural. The collection focuses on cases where an environmental interest interacts with governmental or private interests.
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Kerumpoti Leiyan v Republic [2016] eKLR (Criminal Appeal 2 of 2015); (14 January 2016); 
Animal welfare and rights Flora and fauna Environmental law EL IndexThe court considered an appeal against the conviction and sentence of the appellant, for the killing of an animal, possession of government trophy and failure to report being in possession of government trophy.
The appellant sought leniency and a lighter sentence on the ground that he had reformed. The respondent opposed the appeal and urged the court to uphold, both the conviction and sentence, and maintained that the evidence by the prosecution’s witnesses established the case against the appellant beyond reasonable doubt.
The main issue for the court’s consideration was whether at the trial, there was sufficient evidence to sustain the conviction and sentence of the appellant.
The court found that although the evidence was circumstantial, there was no plausible explanation as to how the appellant came to be in possession of the tusks stolen from the dead elephant. Further that between the discovery of the carcass and arrest of the appellant, there were no intervening factors to weaken the inference of guilt.
The court observed that the appellant was sentenced under the earlier Wildlife Conservation Act, Chapter 376 which had since been repealed. The sentence was more lenient than those introduced by the amended act, thus the sentence was neither excessive, nor wrong. Accordingly, the court held that the appellant had been properly convicted and dismissed the appeal on both sentence and conviction.
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