Symbol of Justice.

A court in Kampala has convicted four South Sudanese men for being in illegal possession of two pangolins at the Ugandan border post of Elegu.

Police Officer 1^st Lt. John Chol Malou, aged 42, Denis Ochan, 38, and another two unnamed individuals were fined or spends three years in Ugandan prison.

The men were caught trying to smuggle two pangolins at the Elegu border post last week.

They were using a silver Mark 2 with registration number SSJ 330 B to smuggle the pangolins.

The convicts are to pay 1 million Ugandan shillings each or spend three years in prison, according to a brother of one of the convicts who attended the court proceedings.

The pangolins have been reportedly being kept at a zoo in Uganda.

Also read: S Sudan wants its pangolins back

There are eight species of the animals still in existence found in India, China, south-east Asia and parts of Africa.

Pangolins are often highly hunted because of their skin, scales, meat, and some of their body parts that are used in making traditional medicine.

Conservationists are battling to save the pangolins, the most illegally traded animal in the world, before it is “eaten to extinction.