The Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) has filed an ap­peal over a mag­is­trate’s de­ci­sion to free al­leged gang leader Ra­jaee Ali on a charge of be­ing in pos­ses­sion of the car­cass of a pro­tect­ed an­i­mal.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stand that ear­li­er this week, State pros­e­cu­tors filed the ap­peal against Mag­is­trate Deb­by Ann Bas­saw’s de­ci­sion last month to up­held a no case sub­mis­sion in the case.

In the sub­mis­sion, pre­sent­ed last month, Ali’s lawyer Mario Mer­ritt claimed that pros­e­cu­tors failed to prove that the car­cass be­longed to a pro­tect­ed an­i­mal un­der the Con­ser­va­tion of Wildlife Act. The leg­is­la­tion makes it an of­fence to hunt a pro­tect­ed an­i­mal or pos­sess its car­cass but does not list a Lappe (low­land paca) as a pro­tect­ed an­i­mal.

Ali was ar­rest­ed along with two men near their homes in Cara­po, Ari­ma, in Au­gust 2014, af­ter po­lice found the car­cass in the trunk.

One of the men pre­vi­ous­ly plead­ed guilty to the of­fence and was fined, while the oth­er al­so ben­e­fit­ed from Bas­saw’s rul­ing.

Their ar­rests oc­curred dur­ing the two-year mora­to­ri­um on hunt­ing that was in­sti­tut­ed by for­mer Min­is­ter of the En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources Gan­ga Singh to help the coun­try’s de­plet­ed wildlife stocks time to re­cov­er.

The out­come of the case was ar­guably in­con­se­quen­tial for Ali, who is still on re­mand along with nine mem­bers of his al­leged gang for mur­der­ing for­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dana See­ta­hal, SC, on May 4, 2014. That case is still at the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry stage.

Ali and four oth­ers have al­so been com­mit­ted to stand tri­al for con­spir­ing to mur­der Slam 100.5 an­nounc­er Ke­vaughn “Lur­bz” Sa­vory on No­vem­ber 27, 2014.