An American citizen arrested during a police raid on his game farm on 22 December 2023 remains in jail in Namakgale in Limpopo Province until his bail application on 10 January 2024. Derek Lewitton (53) appeared briefly in the Namakgale Magistrates Court on 3 January 2024.
Chained to another prisoner, Lewitton arrived in court where he had to face his arresting officer Major General Jan Scheepers. The senior police officer, unusually wearing civilian clothing, had made a long journey to be present for the brief hearing. It is not the norm that a Major General would attend a routine bail hearing, particularly as he must have been fairly sure that the case was going to be postponed.
The court decided that Lewitton had to remain in custody his until citizenship status could be verified with the Department of Home Affairs. Police spokesman, Brigadier Hlulani Mashaba, confirmed to Real Safari that Lewitton will be able to apply for bail on 10 January, but said he cannot provide any further information on an ongoing case.
Derek Lewitton was born in Durban, South Africa but emigrated with his family to the United States when he was only six-years old. He earned a doctorate in jurisprudence from Stanford University in California. He is married to Xenja Lewitton and they have four daughters.
Lewitton was arrested on 22 December during a raid on his Black Rock Conservation organisation at his Harmony game farm near the town of Gravelotte. Scheepers led the raid that discovered carcasses of 26 rhinos and 17 rhino horns as well as various firearms that did not appear to have the required licences.
Scheepers and Lewitton knew each other before the raid as the Black Rock Rhino organisation had been experiencing a severe poaching problem for a long time. Lewitton told Scheepers that he was in possession of the rhino horns and requested his assistance to combat with the poaching. The police general promised to deploy guards on the farm to protect the rhinos. However, when the guards saw the accommodation they had been offered they refused to stay and left the farm.
While the Black Rock Rhino organisation has not commented publicly on the proceedings, it has forwarded a media release authored by James Brackenbury, a UK based Risk & Compliance Consultant.
He described the arrest of Lewitton as “a story straight out of Hollywood” that was picked up by South African newspapers. The media release says, “The salacious rumours which are currently circulating (in) the press are wholly unsubstantiated and serve only to undermine the interests of justice”.
While it is clear that Brackenbury is committed to protecting rhinos against poachers, his choice of words may be unfortunate. He refers to ‘salacious rumours’ where the word ‘salacious’ according to the Cambridge Dictionary means ‘causing or showing too much interest in sexual matters’. In fact, there is absolutely no sexual innuendo or content in any of the dozens of articles published on this occasion.
Secondly he says the ‘rumours’ are unsubstantiated. This is untrue as all the articles were based on the words of a police Major General widely quoted in an official police media release. He is arguably accusing the Major General of lying, but the media quotes were all accurate.
Brackenbury’s media release contains a number of other assertions that may or may not be true, therefore in the interests of transparency he should provide evidence to substantiate these claims. For example, he writes, “The reserve, now secured by two independent security companies, has lost as many as 8 rhinos since Mr Lewitton was detained. The experienced officers of these two companies have remarked that they found no evidence of the supposed “slaughterhouse” described by senior police officers”.
It would seem that either Lewitton is a rapacious individual who uses his rhino conservation organisation to enrich himself or he is being framed by someone behind the rhino poaching gangs.
Social media feeds almost unanimously condemn Lewitton in the most strident terms. Virtually all of them presume he is guilty even though they have not seen any evidence. Many of them also propose cruel punishment for the Texan.
Lewitton is being charged with the possession of unlicensed firearms, but several sources confirm that the firearms did not belong to him. They are the property of a legitimate security company that had been hired to combat poachers.
When various units of the police began their raid on Harmony game farm, Lewitton was not present as he was taking one of his daughters to the airport. His wife Xenja phoned to tell him that the police were on the property.
Lewitton then made his way back to farm as quickly as possible. If he had been involved in criminal activity, is it likely that he would have rushed back to the farm to meet the police? Not really.
There will be follow up to this story as soon as information becomes available.