HARARE, Zimbabwe—Zimbabwe is no longer pressing for the extradition of James Walter Palmer, an American dentist who killed a well-known lion called Cecil, a Cabinet minister said on Oct. 12.
Palmer can now safely return to Zimbabwe as a “tourist” because he had not broken the southern African country’s hunting laws, Environment, Water and Climate Minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri told reporters in Harare on Monday. Zimbabwe’s police and the National Prosecuting Authority had cleared Palmer of wrongdoing, she said.
Through an adviser, Palmer declined comment.
Palmer was identified as the man who killed Cecil in a bow hunt. Cecil, a resident of Hwange National park in western Zimbabwe, was well-known to tourists and researchers for his distinctive black mane.
Muchinguri-Kashiri had said in July that Zimbabwean police and prosecutors would work to get Palmer returned to Zimbabwe to face poaching charges.
On Monday, she told reporters in Harare that Palmer can now safely return to Zimbabwe as a “tourist” because he had not broken this wildlife-rich southern African country’s hunting laws.
“He is free to come, not for hunting, but as a tourist,” Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri told reporters. “It turned out that Palmer came to Zimbabwe because all the papers were in order.”
Cat expert Alan Rabinowitz, chief executive of the New York-based cat conservation organization Panthera, said in response that “the bar must be raised” for any legal hunting of wild cats because wild lion populations are declining in most parts of Africa.
