He was filmed last June, tearing the head of a cock with his teeth, while the animal was alive. A 22-year-old man was sentenced Friday in Bayonne to 80 hours of community service. A sentence he will have to perform within 18 months. This top Basque pelota player was being prosecuted for "acts of cruelty to an animal". He had chosen the procedure of prior recognition of guilt.
In this case, the young man may also have to pay damages. In fact, the five civil parties, including the Bardot Foundation and the SPA, claimed 4,000 euros in damages, on which the court will rule on 8 November.
A rooster "victim of human stupidity"
For the president of the court, the animal "was the victim of human stupidity and the human of digital tyranny". Daniel Raposo, local head of the Bardot Foundation, said the sentence "a bit limited" while the lawyer of the young Basque, Me Khiet Nguyen, said that his client who "will assume," had "regretted the next day" His gesture. He added that he and his family were then threatened on social networks.
>> TO READ ALSO - Beheaded rooster in the Basque Country: the namesake of the author threatened with death
A strong emotion had followed the diffusion on the social networks of the video, taken with the mobile phone during a meal watered at the festivals of Hasparren. The images had generated innumerable comments, insults, threats online, but also a petition "for the Basque Pelota team of France to exclude the player", and "that his sponsors stop sponsoring him". This petition had claimed in five days more than 73,000 signatures.
The French Basque Pelota Federation had in a statement called "to be moderated in this event", stressing that "this young athlete has a perfect awareness of his act, and has always behaved irreproachably in competition".