COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — A group of wealthy businessmen, a Buddhist priest and other social higher-ups on trial in Sri Lanka for allegedly keeping illegally captured elephants may get their animals back — legally.

Sri Lanka's government says it is ready to forgive the owners of poached elephants and give them a chance to apply for licenses provided they can prove in court that they did not know the animals that were confiscated from them had been illegally captured from the wild.

The current trial involves 42 people — four of them accused of illegally capturing and trading in wild elephants, 27 who allegedly altered the official elephant registry and issued and obtained false documents, five suspected of possessing elephants without licenses and six held for possessing licenses without actually having an elephant in their backyard.

A measure adopted by the Cabinet in April says only poachers and wildlife officers who collude with them by providing forged licenses will face punishment.

According to Wildlife Minister Gamini Jayawickrama Perera, owners may get a second chance if they are able to prove that they did not know their elephants were illegally captured or the paperwork fraudulent.

[...] while the population has grown since then to nearly 6,000, according to Sri Lanka's first official elephant census in 2011, they are still considered endangered and under threat from habitat loss and degradation.