A magistrate’s court has found a sheep trader and the manager of a sheep farm in Kibbutz Geva in northern Israel guilty of animal abuse.
Despite the prosecution’s request to send them to jail, the two men are given suspended sentences and fines as part of a plea bargain.
The Beit She’an court sentences the director to a three-month suspended sentence and a fine of 40,000 shekels ($ 12,300). The trader is sentenced to a one-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 30,000 shekels ($ 9,200).
The case, which came to light following an investigation by animal rights organization Animals Now broadcast by public broadcaster Kan, was the first to see charges against farm owners commercial, as well as farm workers. The charge against the kibbutz was subsequently dropped as part of the plea bargaining.
The abuse included throwing day-old live lambs in the trash, failing to care for sick and injured animals, violent and aggressive behavior and unsanitary slaughter.
According to Animals Now, the farm manager has kept his job.