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According to the indictment, the suspect has posted more than 200 advertisements in various Facebook groups where he markets animal parts to various buyers, as DN previously reported. Due to the large number of advertisements and the fact that the trade must have been going on over a long period of time, Christer B Jarlås, prosecutor of the national unit for environmental and labor cases, decided to prosecute the man for a serious violation of the protection of species.
– This is the largest case ever related to the sale of endangered species in Sweden, says prosecutor Christer B Jarlås, told DN in a previous interview.
The man was also charged with smuggling a dead golden eagle said to have been imported from Norway. In his final argument, the prosecutor demanded a prison sentence of up to one and a half years.
The Alingsås District Court sentenced the man for a serious species protection violation and smuggling to one year and four months in prison.
The judgment affirms that “even the commercialization that in an individual case seems relatively innocent means the support to an undesirable market and, therefore, an incentive for those who want to use the market for their benefit”.
The convict himself told him during interrogation who has been interested in Native Americans since childhood. When police searched the man’s home in western Sweden, 136 items were seized, including battle sticks, feather ornaments, shields, dream catchers, snake skins, bear paws and necklaces adorned with various animal parts.
The origin of the animal parts is unclear from the research, but the man himself believes that he partly inherited them and partly received them as gifts or exchanged them for himself in connection with meetings with others who share his interest.
According to the indictment, several of the objects to be traded contained animal parts that are endangered according to Cites, an international agreement on trade in threatened species of wild animals and plants, and according to the EU list of threatened species. Buying and selling them without a permit from the Swedish Board of Agriculture is a crime.
The man’s lawyer Marie Abrahamsson said in a previous interview that his client knew the regulations in part but “not well enough.”
– You say in questioning that in this culture that you profess, people have a different opinion than the prosecutor and the Swedish Board of Agriculture. This is a lifestyle for him and there is a deep love for these animals, he said.
Most of the objects in the man’s collection, with the exception of several spring screws, will be destroyed.
