11 face death over conservationist’s murder in Tanzania

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A high court in Tanzania on Friday sentenced 11 people to death for the murder of a conservationist in the East African country more than five years ago.

Anti-poaching activist Wayne Lotter, a South African national, was shot dead in August 2017 while riding in a taxi in Tanzania’s commercial capital of Dar es Salaam.

Those sentenced to death include nine Tanzanians and two citizens of neighboring Burundi.

Tanzania hasn’t carried out an execution in decades.

Lotter was the director and co-founder of the PALMS Foundation, a nongovernmental organization which said he had helped to train thousands of game scouts throughout Tanzania and developed an “intelligence-based approach” to anti-poaching that had success in countering wildlife trafficking.

Poachers in Tanzania target various wildlife, including elephants that are often killed for their tusks.