Thionville. Hunters pursued for a threshing-combine harvest

Hearing of single judge resolutely “technical” this Thursday, March 18, mentioned in three hours. So much so that the public prosecutor made a point of emphasizing it, and that President Lambert is giving himself a good month to decide.

It is for the magistrate to dissect a case implicating three hunters of the basin of Thionville, prosecuted for having organized in Thionville a beaten without the authorities not being officially notified. Special feature: a combine harvester would have been used to cut game. In this file brought to light by an anonymous letter, there is also a question of a bullet fired at a boar, which would have ended its course in the rear window of a vehicle parked in a nearby road.

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Prefectural judgment in their favor?

The story may seem a little crazy, but not that much, according to the protagonists and the representative of the environmental police. The prosecution, the lawyer for the departmental federation of hunters agree on one point: on this day of July 2017, the security rules were not respected by the defendants, the administrative declaration did not arrive on the desk authorities and the use of agricultural machinery does indeed constitute an infringement of the Environmental Code.

For its part, the defense counsel evokes a judgment from the prefecture of Moselle which relaxes French legislation on hunting. And to explain in particular that the use of a combine harvester during harvest period does not exclude a hunting action, in all legality. About the declaration of the beaten up? “A mistake by the head of the hunt”, so not by his three clients.

In her requisitions, the prosecutor called for suspended sentences, fines, prohibitions on keeping the hunting license and holding weapons.

Deliberated on April 15.

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