District Court sentences couple to conditional imprisonment for drowning dogs
On Thursday, May 3, the District Court of Zofingen sentenced a 38-year-old man to conditional imprisonment of 20 months and a fine of 1000 Swiss francs for drowning his wife's two Miniature Pinschers in the Aare river. His wife also received a conditional sentence of 16 months and a conditional monetary penalty for incitement to animal cruelty. The couple's actions were met with horror throughout Switzerland.
May 4, 2018
"Yes, I really did it," said the man during the interrogation by the court. His pregnant wife had no longer been able to bear the dogs' smell. She had been the driving force behind the crime, the presiding judge noted. The husband claimed he had not been able to find any other solution. On the evening of September 18, 2016, he first tied the Pinschers to two steel pipes, respectively. He then secured the leashes with cable ties so they wouldn't come loose from the dogs' collars and threw the dogs into the river. The Pinschers drowned in agony. A passer-by found their bodies six days later. The husband was temporarily detained in custody.
The public prosecutor's office demanded a semi-conditional prison sentence of two years for the husband, whereby he would serve one full year in prison. For the Stiftung für das Tier im Recht (TIR) it is therefore incomprehensible as to why, in light of the act's cruelty, the court denied the prosecution's request and only imposed conditional prison sentences for both of the accused. For repeated animal cruelty, the highest sentence possible as stipulated in the animal welfare act is unconditional imprisonment of up to four years.
TIR considers the legal penalty range to be insufficient in itself. Such drastic animal cruelty cases must entail far heavier sentencing and be qualified as serious crimes and not as minor offenses that are punished far more leniently. And as long as this is not the case, the authorities must at least exhaust the penalty range. Even if in the present case a judgment was pronounced that far exceeds the average Swiss sentence for animal cruelty (see summary of Swiss animal welfare-related penal practice 2016), and therefore has a certain signal effect, it goes to show just how much authorities continue to trivialize animal cruelty cases.
It remains unclear as to what extent the accused will be permitted to acquire animals in the future. TIR calls on the cantonal veterinary authority to consider appropriate administrative measures, in particular a general ban on keeping animals, to prevent other animals from suffering at the hands of the accused.