No cows and no compensation. The Supreme Court has confirmed the sentence of five months in prison for a farmer who inoculated live strains of brucellosis, contained in prohibited vaccines since 1988, dozens of their cows with the aim of collecting insurance and compensation for the slaughter of cattle.
The events date back to October 2012 when, after the health inspection verified an outbreak of brucellosis affecting 70 of the animals, the farm was ordered to be emptied and the 144 cows from that property were slaughtered. Shortly after, the owner went to request public compensation and started the procedures to collect private insurance. It would be up to him to receive a variable amount depending on the loss of earnings but, in any case, greater than 130,120 euros.
In the case there were some elements that did not quite add up: for example, the fact that a massive infection occurred in a place where the disease was eradicated for years. Or that the values obtained from the first analyzes cast doubt that the animals had been infected naturally, pointing to a induced infection. The tests, with different samples, are repeated in the specialized laboratories of the Xunta, in the Central Animal Health Laboratory, in Santa Fe (Granada) and in the Food Research and Technology Center of the Government of Aragon. They conclude that the profile of the cattle strains is compatible with a vaccine. At that time compensation is denied.
It is the Investigating Court number 2 of Lugo that carries out the investigations and the second section of the Provincial Court that condemns to five months in prison for attempted fraud and a fine of 900 euros. In addition, it must compensate the Xunta de Galicia for a value of 22,475 of expenses derived from the detection of fraud.
The farmer then appeals in cassation before the Supreme Court alleging that there has been a violation of his rights to a effective legal protection, a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. He questions the results of the laboratories because “the test was obtained in the laboratories, without paying attention to the principles of publicity, concentration, immediacy and contradiction” typical of the oral hearing and adds that, during the instruction, for the different analyses, had requested the “documentation in which those responsible for the custody of the samples appear, and the places and conditions in which they have been deposited with an indication of those responsible for their transfer, the time in which they have remained in each of them, so as to guarantee the traceability of the entire custody process”.
Cows walking (Photo: Xunta de Galica)
These, maintains the Supreme Court in its ruling 153/2023, are proceedings aimed at question the chain of custody of evidence on which the defense does not “object to the quality and technical competence of the work of the experts or the methodology used or the inadequacy of the tests carried out.” The doctrine of the TS indicates that “the relationship between the chain of custody and the expert evidence is evident, since the validity of the results of the expertise depends on the guarantee of the origin and content of what is the object of analysis” (SSTS 1008/2022). But he stresses that “the chain of custody serves to prove the «sameness» of the analyzed object, the correspondence between the effect and the analysis or report, its authenticity. It is not a presupposition of validity but of reliability” (STS 777/2013).
In this case, “there is sufficient accreditation that allows conclude without hesitation than the samples in which vaccine strains that correspond to cattle from the appellant’s bovine herd are detected.” In addition, as indicated in the first instance judgment, “the appellant is notified of the process followed at all times and in its concatenation with the resolutions of the Ministry of Rural Affairs and the Sea and with the content of the laboratory reports”, of way that the “sameness” is evidenced questioned. In addition, either the appellant was present or signed his agreement at the evidence.
The appellant tries to question the impartiality of the laboratories of the Xunta while it was represented as an accusation in the procedure. The court notes that it is scientific tasks and in which there is total objectivity in the experts involved. In addition, there are two laboratories outside the Galician administration that give the same results.
Regarding the absence of the experts in the hearing room, questioned by the appellant, the jurisprudence has been holding that “when the evidence is impossible to reproduce in court and there is documentary evidence in the records that allows its assessment and contradiction in court, it is not It is absolutely essential that those who issued it be present at said act for their personal questioning, provided that there is a debate on them at the hearing” (STC 127/1990). Besides, the defense did not challenge the content of the evidence but only the chain of custody and there were expert veterinary staff in the room. In this case, it must also be taken into account that the first analyzes “are of a pre-trial nature, since it is detected by veterinarians from the regional administration, within the scope of an animal sanitation campaign, totally outside the scope of criminal conduct”
Cattle ranching. (Photo: Xunta de Galicia)
There is other evidence, apart from the laboratory analyses: the declarations of the Seprona agents that corroborated the acquisition of the prohibited vaccines containing Brucella strains. Or those of the veterinary staff who considered that, given the values obtained and the dimension of the infection, it could not be a natural infection.
With regard to fraud, it is noted in the conduct of the accused that had no intention of replacing the slaughtered cows because up to “six times Xunta officials came to verify that the farm had been disinfected, the term being until March 2013, without disinfection having been carried out until 2015.” For the court, there is sufficient proof of charge: “the inoculation of brucellosis had no justification or reason other than the collection of compensation further; There was no health motivation, it was an eradicated disease, and a vaccine that had been banned since ancient times was used; and after the slaughter of the cattle, he is only concerned about the compensation, not about the aid that will enable him to resume exploitation ”, he concludes.
