It was the first of the so-called Allgäu animal protection scandals, which also led to investigations on other farms in the area around the Lower Allgäu health resort of Bad Grönenbach: Video images from “Soko Tierschutz” suggested that there were serious grievances in the E. family’s large farm with several thousand cows. Delayed, among other things, by the corona pandemic, the trial against three employees of the farm begins on Friday. The case against the 66-year-old father Franz E. and the 33-year-old son Martin E. and Marcel H. was surprisingly separated shortly before the trial began. The defense lawyers for the two farmers filed motions for bias against four judges, which must be decided before new trial dates are set for father and son.
The public prosecutor’s office accuses the defendants of jointly committing violations of Section 17 of the Animal Welfare Act. Anyone who causes prolonged, significant pain or suffering to a vertebrate must expect up to three years in prison or a fine. The six defendants are said to have failed to have 58 cattle in need of treatment treated by a veterinarian – or to have failed to kill them.
Another trial against those responsible for other dairy farms in the area had to be canceled in June due to scheduling problems. In the first trial against those responsible for a third farm, a 25-year-old was sentenced to a prison sentence of two years and ten months. His 68-year-old father received a two-year suspended prison sentence.