Fifteen professionals of the sector were sentenced Wednesday, in particular for scam in organized gang and deception on the quality of a commodity which led to a danger to the health of the man.
By Luc Leroux (Marseille, correspondent)
They had played the regulations and had introduced horses excluded from the slaughter in the human food industry: 15 professionals from the horse meat sector were sentenced on Wednesday January 11 by the Marseille Criminal Court, In particular for scam in organized gang and deception on the quality of a commodity which led to a danger to the health of the man.
Two Belgian horses’ traders among the important in Europe, Jean-Marc Decker, 58, and Stijn de Visscher, 41, were sentenced to four years in prison, two of which were suspended, a fine of 100,000 euros For the first, 75,000 euros for the second. In the eyes of the court, they share an equal responsibility in a “structured and effective organization allowing to sell a large number of horses excluded from the food chain due to European legislation”.
Hundreds of animals whose traceability had been blurred by a massive appeal to false documents in their identification passports and their drug treatment notebooks had been killed at the municipal slaughterhouse of Alès (Gard) for profit of a horse meat wholesaler. At the head of the company Equi’d Sud, Georges Gonzales, who provided some 80 Chevalines butchers, was sentenced to four years in prison, three of which were suspended, to a fine of 75,000 euros and, like the previous two, to a Prohibition for five years from carrying out any activity in the equine sector. The veterinarian of this slaughterhouse and his auxiliary were inflicted “a warning sentence” of a year in prison suspended for the first, of eight months suspended for the second.
“Channel totally dysfunctional “
The court admitted that the accused had undergone the pressure of customers and difficult exercise conditions, but the telephone listening revealed that they were “aware that questionable horses were slaughtered”. On one of the interceptions, the veterinarian advises his auxiliary, doubtful on the case of a horse not meeting the slaughter criteria: “Let him go!”
The prosecutor had denounced, in June, “a fraudulent sector of the meadow until the plate”, evoking a “totally dysfunctional chain”, composed in particular of horse merchants and their touts, condemned to sentences going from ‘A year of suspended sentence at three years old, two of which were suspended, and to fines ranging from 7,500 euros to 30,000 euros. The court considers that everyone pursued a profit.
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