A baby elephant struggles against its bonds on African Game Services' farm near Pretoria, South Africa
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CNN's Sarah Crowe updates the elephant situation in Brits, South Africa
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BRITS, South Africa (CNN) -- Accused of cruelty to the 30 young elephants he owns, Riccardo Ghiazza insists the animals are in good condition. But the South African trainer acknowledges that mistakes have been made while domesticating them for future homes in zoos and safari parks.

Ghiazza, owner of African Game Services, an animal export farm near Pretoria, summoned reporters to the training facility on Wednesday to tell his side of a story that has ignited an international outcry.

For the past two weeks, a judge has been gathering information in a custody suit over the elephants, which were captured in the drought-ridden Tuli area of Botswana and sold to Ghiazza for domestication and eventual resale at big profit.

An animal cruelty suit filed by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals alleges that Ghiazza has chained and hobbled the elephants, allowed his Indonesian trainers to puncture their hide with sharp hooks and deprived them of water and food.

African Game Services continues to use bamboo hobbles on baby elephants

The society wants the elephants released to other game reserves where they can roam free. A ruling is due soon.

Gentler training?

Independent animals experts who inspected Ghiazza's facility last month at the judge's request said the elephants were under severe stress after being taken from their mothers in the wild and brutally beaten, shackled and abused.

Several of the young elephants observed on Wednesday had scars and one had pus from a wound oozing down its forehead. But heavy sticks once used to make the elephants obey commands were nowhere in sight, replaced with carrots.

Also absent were the "mahouts," as the Indonesian trainers are known. They usually work with Asian elephants, which are regarded as more trainable than their African counterparts.

A baby elephant suffers from stress related to abuse from trainers

Independent elephant experts have told the court that the mahout training traumatizes the elephant and instills aggression. "If I catch one mahout not behaving as he should, he gets a warning. The second time, he's back to Indonesia," Ghiazza said.

"We just want (the elephants) to accept human beings," said the trainer, who admits harsh training methods were used but now have been stopped. "What can you do? You have to rectify it. There is no manual saying which way to do it."

Ghiazza's conversion to less stressful training seems genuine to veterinarian Cobus Raath. "Everyone must go through a learning curve," he told reporters at Ghiazza's facility.

Even wildlife veterinarian Hym Ebebes, who heads the independent committee monitoring the elephants' welfare, said Ghiazza had slowed down the training, removed chains, provided straw as bedding on a cement floor and banished the hooks.

Ghiazza, owner of African Game Services

But the change in attitude rings false with Richard Farinato of the U.S. Humane Society, one of the independent inspectors of Ghiazza's elephant training facility. "There is enough expertise in the world to know how you deal with elephants and how you don't deal with elephants," Farinato told CNN.

Whatever the judge decides, the issue at the core of the custody dispute cuts to the heart of a huge dilemma for African countries with healthy elephant populations -- how to control the lovable but destructive creatures.

In the meantime, say animal experts, these particular young elephants are likely to keep psychological scars from their training and never forget what went on.

Correspondent Sarah Crowe and The Associated Press contributed to this report.