Two Allgäu farmers were sentenced to prison on Tuesday for animal cruelty to several dozen cattle. One of the two accused, a 25-year-old, was sentenced to two years and ten months in prison by the Memmingen district court. He is also not allowed to keep an animal for five years.
His 68-year-old father received a two-year suspended sentence. The presiding judge, Christian Liebhart, said the man’s age and poor health played a role in the severity of the sentence. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
The court saw it as proven that the two farmers had not separated sick animals from healthy ones in their stables and had not called a veterinarian. As a result, the cattle are said to have suffered considerably, and some had to be slaughtered.
The public prosecutor had previously demanded two and a half years or two years and ten months in prison for the two men. Even laypeople could have seen from the sick cattle that the animals were in a “pathetic” condition. The defense lawyers referred to the confessions of the two accused and spoke out in favor of prison sentences of less than two years, which could be suspended on probation.
At least in the case of the 25-year-old, the court did not follow this argument. Judge Liebhart said that father and son were a little overwhelmed with their business due to financial difficulties. Nevertheless, their actions testified to “ignorance of animal welfare”. Both accused had persistently refused numerous requests from the authorities to improve conditions on their farms.
Animal rights activists had published videos
The farmers hit the headlines with their business in Bad Grönenbach (Unterallgäu district) in 2019 in the so-called Allgäu animal welfare scandal. At that time, the investigators became aware of animal welfare violations on several farms in the region after the association “Soko Tierschutz” published videos that are said to show cases of animal cruelty from a large farm.
“Soko Tierschutz” chairman Friedrich Mülln said on Tuesday that the association was “delighted” about the verdict. “It can actually be considered historic.” The judgment must have a “signal effect” on other procedures, demanded Mülln. “We need an effective deterrent in industrial agriculture, otherwise it’s just up to us animal welfare organizations to fight against it, and that’s really a difficult task.”
In the course of the coming year, the operators of two other farms are also to answer in court. At the end of 2021, the Kempten district court had already sentenced three farmers from the Oberallgäu district to suspended sentences in more than 100 individual cases for animal welfare violations. In the affected farms, inspectors found overcrowded stables, emaciated cattle and animals lying in feces.