"Aronis Charalimpos was arraigned in court on Tuesday after he was caught at the weekend trying to smuggle six pieces of ivory and a leopard skin out of Nairobi airport and pleaded guilty," Nairobi airport police commander Thomas Chigamba told AFP by telephone.

Chigamba said the ivory, which the smuggler said he obtained in Zanzibar, was confiscated.

Last February, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officials seized 33 elephant tusks and arrested five suspected poachers found transporting ivory in northern Kenya.

Trade in ivory is banned under a treaty of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

But at last year's CITES meeting in the Chilean capital Santiago, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa were allowed to sell some 60 tonnes of their ivory stockpiles, a decision that has angered Kenya.

Kenya fears the decision to allow limited trade in ivory will endanger the safety of elephants in Africa, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the creatures are said to be heavily poached.

SPACE.WIRE