A hunter is said to have killed in the Bavarian forest, a lynx. Now, the method has been set. The WWF is disappointed.
Send ears: lynx photo: Holger Hollemann/dpa
REGENSBURG taz | The mood in the courtroom of the regional court of Regensburg was tense, as the judge announced the verdict in matters of illegal lynx killing. Up to this third day of the trial, the outcome of the appeal process had been completely open. At the end of the judge tipped on Friday afternoon, the judgment in the first instance for lack of Evidence and closed proceedings.
Thus, the defendant did, however, get “no acquittal”, as judge Johann Piendl said. In addition, the procedure was a warning to all, the “my to their own interests in the criminal way, about the common good bodies.”
The WWF showed this output to be disappointed. “This is a slap in the face of all those who offer the poachers in Germany the forehead,” says Diana Pretzell, head of the Department of biodiversity at WWF. “The investigative authorities need to be enabled in the future to track such crimes and to educate.”
five months Ago, a 54-year-old farmer and hunter was sentenced in the district court of Cham to a fine of 3,000 euros. The accusation: Stalking and Killing of at least one lynx in the time before the 1. In June 2014, moreover, the possession of illegal weapons. The judgment had been made on the basis of circumstantial evidence and witness statements. After that, the defense had gone in Revision, in order to obtain an acquittal. The prosecution had filed an appeal and had found that the punishment is too mild.
The great interest that aroused the procedures nationwide, has to do with the that for years the lynx in the Bavarian forest illegally killed. On the other, so that the Bavarian justice has followed this case from the protection of species of crime with unprecedented meticulousness.
So the investigators had discovered the house of the Suspect searched and lynx ears and claws. Their DNA was compared with that of four separate lynx paws, which had been found the year before, not far from the house of the accused. These findings were cross-checked with the Czech lynx database.
in addition, there were particles of a ballistic report, the Bullet. Although at that time no connection to the accused could be established, but the investigators had discovered in the search of various prohibited weapons, as well as in the area of the defendant’s hidden iron case. GSR on her had voted with the illicit weapons Convention.
The main witness had gone in 2016 in the district of Cham to hunt there for deer. There, the defendant country did host him on his territory presents, and boasted here, you can also hunt the lynx, the witness. The farmer also tells of how he caught even the lynx, and I killed, in a metal case in the woods.
The defendant insisted, however, that this has just been “hunter’s Latin”. The iron cage of his now deceased father as a “Fox did the case”. The had not believed him at the time of the Cham, judge, because, firstly, the case for foxes to have been too large, and secondly, the father for the period in question, with an amputated leg in a wheelchair. In the iron cage, the police had thought, had found Rehhaare and Rehknochen – to the satisfaction of the indictment as bait.
Ultimately, the Evidence was too thin to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. Also, the Regensburg judge, it would be a time of the offence notice. This is a possible criminal Offence might be time-barred already. And so he decided “in dubio pro reo” – if in doubt, for the accused. Only for the illegal possession of weapons, the defendant received a fine in the amount of 30 days of sets of 25 Euro.
Despite the disappointment of nature evaluated protectors it as a success-that intensive law enforcement took place. “It is a clear Signal that the protection of nature, crime is no trivial offence”, says Norbert Schäffer, Chairman of the country Confederation for the protection of birds, the Bavarian part of the Association of the NABU.
“Who’s animal kills in Bavaria, a protected wild intentionally, so that with him at six o’clock in the morning the police comes to search the house.” A positive effect is already apparent: Since the beginning of the investigation, the illegal killings of lynx in the Bavarian forest, have declined.
