Tried since Tuesday, June 7 before the 6th chamber of the Marseille criminal court, in the courtroom of the "non-standard trials" of the former barracks of Muy, 18 defendants - horse dealers, touts and veterinarians - are notably prosecuted for fraud and complicity in fraud in an organized gang, as well as for deception involving a danger to human health.

Arrived early in the room where many journalists were already present, Jean-Marc Decker, 58, a Belgian national suspected of being the "pivot" of this "vast international horse traffic", is thus prosecuted for having introduced into the food chain of animals unfit for consumption. 

At the helm, before the very educational president of the court, the defendants, of whom only 13 were physically present on Tuesday morning, are being prosecuted for acts committed between 2010 and 2015. In particular, they allegedly committed numerous breaches of European regulations concerning imported horses from countries of the European Union.

>> Ingrid Kragl, Chief Information Officer of Foodwatch: "Food fraud affects everyone"

The only legal person prosecuted in this case is a wholesale company selling horse meat from the Gard.

"They fooled everyone"

Fifties or sixties for the most part, several suppliers of Jean-Marc Decker are implicated for having supplied him with animals "unfit for consumption", thanks to false documents blurring the traceability of the animals.

Some would even have deceived the former owners of the animals on their intention to lead them to the slaughterhouse.

At the end of the chain, the wholesale company Equi'd Sud d'Alès and its manager Georges Gonzales are accused of "indifference vis-à-vis the health imperatives governing their profession".

This company, which supplied 80 retailers in the south of France, falsely led to the belief that the meat was of French origin.

The trial, scheduled until June 24, was to enter the heart of the case on Tuesday afternoon with the appearance of the official veterinarian of the municipal slaughterhouse of Alès, where the investigation had started in 2013. This same year had was marked by another Europe-wide scandal of horse meat concealed in theoretically beef dishes – in France, this had been detected in particular in Findus lasagna. 

The national council of the order of veterinarians, the municipality of Alès and the National Interprofessional Association of Livestock and Meat (ANBV) have notably brought civil action. 

Aline Oudin, former owner of a horse that she had entrusted in 2013 to one of the defendants in order to "offer him a happy retirement", she appeared at the hearing on Tuesday morning, after having traveled from Meurthe-et-Moselle, to file a written civil party application.

"They fooled the owners, they fooled the consumers, they fooled everyone," she accused AFP on the eve of her hearing.

Fifteen days after entrusting her horse, she learned that he had been shot.

With AFP

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