The Court of Cassation confirmed, ten years after the Forestry Corps investigation, the conviction of two representatives of the Martin Circus accused of animal abuse. In 2014, after a series of reports, the Tempio Inspectorate personnel seized the animals in Arzachena. The case almost immediately turned into a tough legal dispute between the Martin Circus and LAV.
Eleonora Panella, head of the exotics area of LAV, states: «The long legal battle is now over. From this goal we continue to fight so that the circus with animals becomes only a bad nightmare. This seizure is in many ways historic and unique and those animals were entrusted to LAV. To date, in fact, no seizures of circuses so important in terms of number of animals have been ordered, even though they are still exploited and detained in circuses. The animals seized from the Circo Martin and entrusted to LAV who takes care of them, have been living peacefully for 10 years at the AnimaNatura Wild Sanctuary Center».
The Tempio Court, in 2022, had sentenced the defendants for the crime of animal abuse to four months of imprisonment, a sentence confirmed by the Court of Appeal of Sassari . Panella says: «We ask Minister Giuli to ban the use of animals and support the contemporary circus without further delay, finally implementing the delegation law 106/2022 already postponed by a year by his predecessor and listening to the voices of citizens, who last year through a DOXA-BVA survey asked for an ethical circus without any more animals forced for the “entertainment” of a few».
