Prosecutors have withdrawn new smuggling charges against the professional hunter who helped an American dentist kill Zimbabwe's popular lion Cecil, his lawyer said on Thursday.

Theo Bronkhorst, 52, was arrested on Monday in Zimbabwe's second-largest city of ­Bulawayo after he was linked with an illegal operation to smuggle 29 sable antelope out of the country.

"The state withdrew charges relating to the sables before plea," lawyer Perpetua Dube said.

"He was, however, charged with moving animal trophies contrary to provisions of his permit and granted $100 bail."

Bronkhorst was held days after three South Africans were arrested and charged for trying to smuggle 29 sable - a rare and expensive breed of ­antelope - into South Africa.

Hewitt Edwin, 49, ­Blignaut Hendricks Johannes, 41, and Pretorius Herbert John, 49, also face charges of illegal capture and ­translocation of ­wildlife as well as illegally ­crossing an ­international boundary, according to wildlife authorities.

Zimbabwean authorities said that the animals - which include six calves and are valued at $384,000 - were captured from a private conservancy in the northwestern resort town of Victoria Falls.

Local media say the smuggling bid was ­discovered when the cars transporting the animals got stuck on the Limpopo River bed, which divides the two countries.

The Zimbabwean hunter was the guide during a hunt which saw American dentist Walter Palmer pay $55,000 to shoot the popular feline Cecil with a bow and arrow in July.