The defendants were accused of having deceived the butchers of Occitanie and their customers on the quality of the meat. It came in particular from laboratory horses of the Sanofi farm, unfit for consumption.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
They had deceived checkers and consumers by selling them improper meat for human consumption, notably from laboratory horses from the Sanofi farm: twenty-four defendants were sentenced Tuesday, February 28 in Marseille, for a large fraud committed ten years ago.
Patrick Rochette, meat wholesaler in Narbonne (Aude), to whom the Marseille Criminal Court awarded “the main responsibility”, is the most heavily sentenced, with three years in prison, two years suspended, a fine of 15 000 euros and a ban for five years from carrying out any activity related to the equine sector. The year of firm imprisonment will be purged at home under electronic bracelet, said Céline Ballerini, the president of the court.
During the three weeks of the trial, in January, Patrick Rochette, 68, had recognized the slaughter of horses of the Sanofi Fermership whose passport nevertheless brought the mention “definitively dismissed from human consumption”. The makeup admitted that it replaced by a virgin document the initial drug treatment sheet.
“Fraud is obvious and could jeopardize health security on national and abroad,” denounced M me ballerini, notably evoking these horses which had allowed Sanofi D ‘Develop antivenimous serums. However, expertise had ruled out any toxicological risk for consumers.
sentenced to two years in prison, including six months firm to serve under electronic bracelet, to a ban on exercise for five years in the equine sector and a fine of 20,000 euros, Fabrice Daniel, farmer and horses trader in The Gard, provided Sanofi these laboratory horses, then resumed them, once reformed after several years, by buying them ten euros for the animal. These animals were then sold to Patrick Rochette.
“contempt for health rules”
The court pointed out its “exceptional profits” and its “contempt for health rules”. In its judgment, the court, however, specified to take into account the seniority of the facts as well as a “certain wait -and -see of the administration and the absence of clear instructions” in the application of the European legislation in force in 2009.
With the exception of a Spanish horse merchant of horses, absent during the debates and sentenced to two years in prison, one year of which firm, all the sentences pronounced against the twenty -one defendants are all matching by the suspended And go by two to thirty months. The heaviest sanctions the horses’ touts for Patrick Rochette or those who have exported animals to Italy, Poland and Spain with false documents.
Beyond the Sanofi horses, the defendants have brought down animals that should not be for regulatory reasons. The hearing has thus established the use of dead horses passports to provide papers to animals not, or the use of the false stamp of a veterinarian of Chambéry.
Evoking the “complacency of health professionals”, the court sentenced the eight veterinarians who were tried to suspended prison sentences ranging from two to six months. The prosecutor Jean-Yves Lourgouilloux had nevertheless requested the release of four of them, believing that nothing was established “that professional deficiencies are changed to a fraudulent intention”. A euro for moral damage was allocated to Sanofi, the amount that the laboratory claimed.