Weiden (dpa/lby) - An animal torturer has to answer for a third time in court in Weiden in the Upper Palatinate: The man tortured about 20 rats and birds to death in a sadistic way and filmed cell phone videos of his actions. After the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court (BayObLG) in Nuremberg overturned the second-instance judgment of the Weiden Regional Court in February 2022, the case will now be heard again on Wednesday (1 p.m.). In November 2021, the man in Weiden was sentenced to three years in prison for violating the Animal Welfare Act. He and the public prosecutor appealed against this.
According to a spokesman, the Senate of the BayObLG expressly emphasized that the sentence was fundamentally appropriate. However, a psychiatric report on the criminal responsibility of the man should be drawn up. Should this be certified as reduced criminal responsibility or even incapacitated, accommodation in a psychiatric facility is possible instead of imprisonment. The result of the report is expected on Wednesday.
The accused had gradually bought the animals in a pet shop in the spring of 2020. He fried a rat alive in the pan and commented with "Crispy steak, it couldn't be fresher". He doused one rat with lighter fluid and set it on fire, and cut off the paws of another. He sent the film sequences, in which you can hear him amused by the suffering of the animals, to an acquaintance. So she went to the police.
In the first instance, the man was sentenced to two years and nine months by the district court in Weiden. On the other hand, both the prosecution and the defense had appealed.
