Hotel slammed after leopard attack
March 30 2009 at 07:49PM
Nairobi - A Tanzanian court has found against the owners of a hotel in whose grounds a six-year-old French boy was mauled to death by a leopard, the child's father said on Monday.
"We had asked for three things," Adelino Pereira, father of Adrien, told reporters.
"Authorisation to plant a tree on the spot where our son was killed and to place a commemorative plaque and symbolic damages of 50 000 dollars. All these requests have been accepted," he said.
"That means the responsibility of the hotel has been recognised. That does not change anything about what happened but this responsibility, which was always denied, has at last been recognised."
The verdict was given by the High Court in Arusha in northern Tanzania and the hotel owners have 15 days to appeal.
On October 1 2005 the boy was attacked and killed by the leopard while his family was staying at the Tarangire Safari Lodge, in the Tarangire national park near Arusha.
Witnesses cited by the family said another child, aged four, had been injured by the same leopard shortly before Adrien was attacked.
A doctor present at the hotel, who tried to save Adrien, said hotel staff had reported that the leopard regularly approached the hotel, especially on Saturday evenings when there was a weekly braai for guests.
National parks in Tanzania, like those in neighbouring Kenya, are rich in wildlife, in particular big cats, which often come near to the hotels in them. - Sapa-AFP
