On April 28, 2021, the Debrecen District Court pronounced a verdict in a preparatory hearing in the case of the accused who killed several animals with his air rifle on the outskirts of Debrecen.
During the preparatory hearing, the prosecutor presented the indictment and made a moderate motion regarding the content of the sentence if the accused made an affidavit and waived his right to a trial.
F. Sz., Who is serving a final custodial sentence for another case, admitted to committing the crime in accordance with the indictment and waived his right to a trial.
The court of first instance found the accused guilty of the crime of continuous poaching, the crime of damage to nature and the theft of continuous theft, and was therefore sentenced as multiple recidivism to 1 year, 8 months in prison and 2 years in public detention. With respect to the injured hunting company, the district court upheld the civil claim and ordered the defendant to pay damages.
According to the facts established by the court, the defendant had several air guns from the summer of 2018 to the summer of 2019, with which he killed several animals from the garden of his house. The areas behind the man’s property are already outlying areas, the wider environment being an area belonging to a hunting association.
Without the right to hunt, the accused shot and illegally stole a pheasant rooster, two pheasant hens, a mallard duck, and two hares with an unknown air gun. The man caused 100,000 forints in damage to the hunting company by shooting and stealing the animals.
In addition, the man’s air rifle killed several animals that were protected from a conservation point of view. The accused shot two sowing crows, the nature conservation value of which was HUF 50,000 each, and hunted down a large woodpecker with a nature conservation value of HUF 25,000.
The decision was noted by the prosecutor, but the accused and his defense counsel filed an appeal for mitigation, so it did not become final, the case continues in the Debrecen General Court.
Debrecen General Court
Our picture is just an illustration: MTI / Attila Kovács
