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British hunter faces death penalty for 'mass murder' in Africa after FINDING 13 victims of wanted warlord Joseph Kony

By Rebecca Evans

PUBLISHED: 21:55 GMT, 8 May 2012 | UPDATED: 08:45 GMT, 9 May 2012

A British man was last night facing the death penalty after being charged with mass murder following the discovery of 13 bodies in an African jungle.

David Simpson, 24, a manager for a big game company, was arrested six weeks ago in the Central African Republic after he reported the gruesome find to police.

He found himself being thrown in prison accused of the killings, which are widely believed to have been carried out by supporters of notorious warlord Joseph Kony.

Mr Simpson, whose company offers wealthy clients the opportunity to shoot lions, leopards and buffalo, is being detained in a cramped and filthy jail cell with 80 other inmates in what he has described as a ‘nightmare’.

The Yorkshire-born son of a farmer told the Daily Mail he has been charged with a crime that still carries the death penalty in the war-torn impoverished country.

Speaking yesterday on a mobile phone smuggled into prison, he said: ‘For six weeks they held me without a shred of evidence.

'And now I have been forced to sign a piece of paper which states that I have been charged with murdering 13 people.

‘It is just ridiculous. Everyone knows I had nothing to do with it. They know it was Kony.

‘It’s all about money. They think because I am white, I must be wealthy.

'When they first arrested me, my bail was set at one million euros, which is just ludicrous.

‘I do not know what is going to happen. It’s like a nightmare. I’m sleeping on the floor with no blankets or mattress. I just want this to be over.’

Ugandan rebel chief Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity including the abduction of thousands of children he has forced to be soldiers or sex slaves.

His troops have committed hundreds of atrocities in the Central African Republic, where he is understood to be in hiding.

He made international headlines after a video of his terrible crimes was viewed more than 90million times and highlighted by celebrities including Angelina Jolie.

Mr Simpson moved to Africa two years ago for an exciting new life away from his family’s pheasant farm in Gillamoor, North Yorkshire.

As manager for the game hunting company he is also the firm’s pilot, flying guests and picking up supplies.

He was helping colleagues clear a road through dense bush in the south of his firm’s vast hunting reserve on March 23 when they found the mutilated bodies of workers near a gold mine.

The men had been tied together in groups of four and murdered by having boiling water poured over them. They had been cut with machetes and beaten with sticks.

He said: ‘It was a terrible thing to see. They were murdered in such a methodical and brutal way, tied together in groups, face down and in circles with their heads together.

'I told the police but I didn’t think for a second they would try to pin it on me.

‘Kony has killed and maimed lots of villagers here. I have found the bodies of women and children he had kidnapped and then murdered.

‘I led investigators to the massacre site and they took a few photos on their mobile phones, which was about the sum total of their investigation.’

Police in the capital, Bangui, detained Mr Simpson and his Swedish boss Erik Mararv after six hours of interrogation when they voluntarily went to report the massacre in the remote south-east of the country. Mr Mararv is also in custody.

His company Cawa offers clients the chance to hunt wild game at a cost of thousands of pounds, with the cost of shooting a lion around £20,000.

Mr Simpson’s brother Paul, 22, who lives with their parents, Peter, 57, and Vicky, 55, on their farm, said: ‘I just hope the police come to their senses and release him.’

The Foreign Office said it was providing consular assistance.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...ies-Africa.html

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John aka NitroX

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