The magistrate of the instance court number 3 of the criminal section of Castellón has ruled in favor of Antonio Luis García, then director of the Desert de les Palmes Natural Park, and Juan Francisco Librán, the farmer who owned the animals. Both were accused of animal cruelty following the death of ten donkeys in this natural area, located in the municipality of Cabanes (Plana Alta), during 2021.
The verdict, announced this Wednesday, concludes that there is insufficient evidence to prove that the deaths occurred due to negligence, lack of food, absence of control, or that the animals were in a state of abandonment. This judicial decision is subject to appeal.
It has not been proven that the death of the donkeys was a consequence of an omission carried out by the defendants that put the animals' welfare at risk.
The prosecution argued that minimum necessary actions to assist the animals were not carried out, nor was an adequate veterinary assessment performed, nor was a controlled transfer of the deceased specimens arranged, nor was a necropsy requested to determine the cause of death. The judicial case began after the death of nearly one-fifth of the fifty donkeys introduced to the site as part of a fire prevention project. During the program, which extended until October 2021, eight donkeys died and at least two more went missing, while the remaining recovered animals showed signs of great weakness.
The Prosecutor's Office had sought a twenty-month prison sentence for the accused for a continuous animal cruelty offense, in addition to a special disqualification of four and a half years from any profession or trade related to animals and from owning animals.
The judge also could not prove that the deaths were due to the animals lacking shelter from adverse weather conditions or the absence of a prior adaptation process to the natural environment. Likewise, the court found no evidence that the only infrastructures in the project were four water tanks and an electric fence, or that other measures were not implemented during the night, when the donkeys remained in the mountains.
The ruling also states that it was not proven that the death or condition of the surviving animals was due to an insufficient diet. The donkeys fed on the existing vegetation in the Desert de les Palmes, mainly woody species, and it has not been established that their anti-herbivorous characteristics seriously affected the animals' health. Therefore, in the absence of sufficient incriminating evidence to overturn the presumption of innocence, both defendants have been acquitted.
Beyond the judicial sphere, the donkey issue caused a crisis in the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, then led by Mireia Mollà of Compromís. Benjamín Pérez, director of Natural Environment at the time, resigned over the management of the forestry project in Desert de les Palmes, following an internal investigation that revealed “many gaps and negligent behaviors” in supervision, as indicated by the minister. The former director, now acquitted, defended himself by stating that he informed the Generalitat of the events and pointed to a possible boycott or poisoning by third parties, a theory he reiterated during the trial.
