Le Roux buffalo case postponed

TWENTY Cape buffalo valued at more than R4-million will, for now, remain on former Springbok rugby player Hennie le Roux's Medbury game farm near Grahamstown as a legal battle over their ownership was yesterday postponed.

The Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency (ECPTA)has taken Le Roux to the Grahamstown High Court demanding that he return the buffalo, which escaped from the adjacent Thomas Baines Game Reserve.

Le Roux has contested ownership.

Izak Smuts, SC, acting for Le Roux, has submitted that ECPTA did not own the game reserve land or its assets – including the game -- but had simply been given the authority to manage it on behalf of the Eastern Cape government.

If the ECPTA did not own the animals to start with, the court action to have them returned to it must fail, he said.

The case was yesterday postponed to July 24. – Adrienne Carlisle