Court Calendar: Precedental verdicts

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  July/August 2003:

A three-judge panel of the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled 2-1
on July 9 that a ballot initiative prohibiting the state government
from confiscating private property without first obtaining a criminal
conviction against the owner was structured in violation of state
constitutional rules.  Passed by two thirds of the voters but not yet
enforced,  the initiative was challenged by the Lincoln Interagency
Narcotics Team with several humane societies as co-plaintiffs.  If
enforced in cruelty cases,  the initiative could prevent taking
animals into protective custody upon charging the defendants,  and
therefore might expose the animals to continued suffering.

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Greek street animals — Olympic organizers go for hearts of gold

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  July/August 2003:

ATHENS–Fears among Greek animal advocates that street dogs
and feral cats might be poisoned en masse before the 2004 Olympic
Games eased on June 26 when Athens 2004 Organizing Committee
president Gianna Angelopoulou Daskalaki endorsed a plan to sterilize,
vaccinate,  tattoo,  and return to their neighborhoods as many as
20,000 animals,  beginning in September 2003.
Greek deputy agrculture minister Fotis Hatzimichalis
announced that the project would begin with a budget of one million
euros.  Local municipalities are to provide animal capture vehicles
and surgical workspace.  The actual capturing is to be done by
volunteers or staff of nonprofit animal welfare societies.

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Listen to what Keiko wants!

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  July/August 2003:

Listen to what Keiko wants!
Guest column by Bonnie Norton

Do you (along with thousands of other people), know in your
heart that after five years of trying to free Keiko, it is now time
to bring him to a place where he can be taken care of and again be
with people?
I am a devoted animal lover. In general, I am not in favor of
keeping wild animals in captivity, but have learned to observe,
listen to, and honor each animal as an individual.
In 1997 I learned to communicate with animals. While visiting
the Oregon Coast Aquarium I communicated with Keiko who,  to my
surprise,  told me he did not want to be set free and would continue
to behave in ways to discourage his handlers from releasing him
because his work was with the people who came to see him.

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Dutch assassin gets 18 years

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

AMSTERDAM–Volkert van der Graaf, 33, who confessed to
killing anti-immigration and pro-fur politician Pim Fortuyn on May 6,
2002, in the first Dutch political assassination since World War II,
was on April 14 sentenced to serve 18 years in prison.
Seeking a life sentence, the prosecution said it would appeal.
Likening the assassination to shooting Adolph Hitler before
he could rise to power, van der Graaf testified that he shot Fortuyn,
54, because he was “a threat to weaker groups in society,”
including asylum-seekers, Muslims, the disabled, and animals.
Fortuyn’s political party, named for himself, gained a substantial
sympathy vote in the first election following the assassination, but
soon self-destructed due to factionalism and fell out of the
governing coalition in late 2002.
Founding the organization Environmental Offensive in 1992,
the militantly vegan van der Graaf “before the assassination worked
up to 80 hours a week litigating against commercial animal farming,
and was described by other activists as a fanatic,” wrote Toby
Sterling of Associated Press.
If van der Graaf is not re-sentenced to prison for life, he
is expected to be eligible for parole in 2014. Dutch courts have
sentenced only 21 people to prison for life since 1945, most of them
serial killers.

Embezzling in Germany

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

MUNICH–Wolfgang Ullrich, 58, head of the 230,000-member
German animal welfare society Deutsches Tierhilfswerk 1994-1999, was
on April 1, 2003 sentenced to 12 years in prison for embezzling $28
million.
Reported Reuters, “Thai police first arrested Ullrich, who
ran a restaurant in the resort of Pattaya, after investigating him
for tax evasion. Subsequent probes into his finances uncovered a
front company Ullrich had set up in Switzerland, into which he
channeled donations from animal lovers.”
Deutsches Tierhilfswerk is now expected to sue seeking
recovery of the money.

Blind “justice” can’t tell chickens from dead wood

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

SAN DIEGO, California–Ward Poultry Farm owners Arie and
Bill Wilgen-burg, of Escondido, California, will not be charged
with cruelty for having employees toss more than 60,000 live hens
into wood chippers, the San Diego County district attorney’s office
announced on April 10, because the Wilgenburgs were told to chip the
chickens alive by a USDA-accredited veterinarian.
The veterinarian was neither working for the USDA nor
representing it, but was advising the Wilgenbergs about killing
their flocks, at two sites, to help halt the spread of the worst
outbreak of Newcastle disease since 12 million chickens and other
domestic birds were killed to control an outbreak in 1971.

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Dutch assassin gets 18 years

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

AMSTERDAM–Volkert van der Graaf, 33, who confessed to
killing anti-immigration and pro-fur politician Pim Fortuyn on May 6,
2002, in the first Dutch political assassination since World War II,
was on April 14 sentenced to serve 18 years in prison.
Seeking a life sentence, the prosecution said it would appeal.
Likening the assassination to shooting Adolph Hitler before
he could rise to power, van der Graaf testified that he shot Fortuyn,
54, because he was “a threat to weaker groups in society,”
including asylum-seekers, Muslims, the disabled, and animals.

Read more

Embezzling in Germany

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

MUNICH–Wolfgang Ullrich, 58, head of the 230,000-member
German animal welfare society Deutsches Tierhilfswerk 1994-1999, was
on April 1, 2003 sentenced to 12 years in prison for embezzling $28
million.
Reported Reuters, “Thai police first arrested Ullrich, who
ran a restaurant in the resort of Pattaya, after investigating him
for tax evasion. Subsequent probes into his finances uncovered a
front company Ullrich had set up in Switzerland, into which he
channeled donations from animal lovers.”
Deutsches Tierhilfswerk is now expected to sue seeking
recovery of the money.

Hedgehog rescuers face a prickly situation off the Scottish coast

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

EDINBURGH–Operation Tiggywinkle was to
commence at dawn on March 27, 2003 in the
Western Isles off Scotland.
Ross Minott, campaign director for the
Scots group Advocates for Animals, was to lead a
20-member volunteer team ashore to try to rescue
an estimated 5,000 hedgehogs from the islands of
North Uist, Benbecula, and South Uist, ahead
of death squads to be sent in April by Scottish
National Heritage.
The hedgehogs were introduced to the Western
Isles in 1974 as an attempted biological control
for garden slugs and snails who annoyed the 6,000
human residents of the islands. Eventually the
hedgehogs came to be considered pests themselves.

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