{"id":14232,"date":"2014-07-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/echonews.sites.caxton.co.za\/14232\/rhino-horn-smuggling\/"},"modified":"2014-07-19T09:35:15","modified_gmt":"2014-07-19T07:35:15","slug":"rhino-horn-smuggling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/news-headlines\/2014\/07\/15\/rhino-horn-smuggling\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Rhino horn smuggling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Elijah Ngubeni, who is suspected of being part of a smuggling syndicate, faces several criminal charges together with his co-accused which includes ex-policemen, Vietnamese and Mozambican nationals.<\/p>\n<p>The alleged kingpin and ex Warrant Officer Joseph Nyalungu (Big Joe) has, since his arrest in 2011, had millions of Rand and some of his vehicles forfeited to the state.<\/p>\n<p>Ngubeni phoned the Middelburg Observer claiming his innocence.<\/p>\n<p>He said that he has been in custody since 2011 when he was arrested at the Kruger National Park where he worked.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mobserver.co.za\/12178\/another-delay-in-rhino-case\/\">He claimed to not understand why he has been kept in custody all these years without a trial.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He claims that he was set up by his superiors after he reported that one of his fellow co-workers was in possession of a gun used for rhino poaching.<\/p>\n<p>Ngubeni explains a charge of trespassing by saying that he was on his way to obtain a certificate from an office within the park when he was picked up and charged.<\/p>\n<p>A trusted source say that Ngubeni initially planned to enter into a plea agreement with the state.<\/p>\n<p>He changed his mind on number 99 and was then added to the long list of accused already accompanying Big Joe.<\/p>\n<p>The case was postponed until end July when the Mozambican nationals on the list of accused ended their mandate with their Legal Aid lawyer and appointed new legal representation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Accused number thirteen in a rhino horn smuggling case currently circulating in the Middelburg Magistrates Court, made contact with the Middelburg Observer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":14233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Jana Boshoff","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[1049,1986,1532,1088],"class_list":["post-14232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines","tag-danger","tag-rhino-horn-smuggling","tag-rhino-poaching","tag-warning"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"tag_labels":["danger","Rhino horn smuggling","rhino poaching","warning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}