Czech convicted of illegally collecting insects escapes India

Oct 26, 2008, 16:38 GMT

Prague - A Czech national, who was sentenced to three years in prison in India for illegally collecting insects in a national park, escaped India, his supporter said Sunday.

Amateur entomologist Emil Kucera fled India via Nepal and arrived in the Czech Republic on Friday, said Vladislav Maly from the Czech Entomological Society.

Kucera had been awaiting an appeal hearing in the country's Darjeeling district on the lower range of the Himalayas. The hearing was postponed from mid-October to early November.

He said in a statement that he escaped India because he could not get a fair trial in Darjeeling.

'Instead of defending him, his lawyer was conspiring with the judge and the prosecution. It was all corrupted,' Maly said.

Kucera was detained in June together with Petr Svacha, a scientist with the Czech Academy of Sciences, by forestry officials outside the Singalila National Park in the eastern West Bengal province.

The officials seized some 200 insects from the Czechs and charged them with violating India's Wildlife Protection Act and Biological Diversity Act.

India's 1972 wildlife bill bans people from visiting national parks and collecting insects without a permit, a crime punishable by three to seven years in jail.

The bio-diversity bill prohibits unauthorized collection of any biological material both for research and commercial use, an offence punishable by up to five years' imprisonment.

The entomologists admitted to breaking the bio-diversity legislation, claiming not to have known about the bill introduced in 2002.

But they rejected the charges under the wildlife act, saying they were gathering insects outside the protected areas and had no intention of selling their finds.

'I did not have a single endangered species,' Kucera told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in a recent telephone interview from India.

The Czechs also claimed they were tricked by the forestry officials into signing blank sheets of paper that were used to fake their confessions.

However, the court in Darjeeling did not believe them. The judge punished Svacha with a fine as he was a respected scientist and sentenced Kucera to a fine and three years in prison.

Svacha stays at the Czech Republic's embassy in New Delhi, waiting for Indian authorities to return his passport so he can return to the Czech Republic, Maly said.

Czech officials said that India could request Kucera's extradition only after its courts issue a final ruling in his case.