Updated 4.20pm with Birdlife reaction A poacher who shot down four flamingoes has been spared jail by a court of appeal, which ruled that the protected species is not endangered. Miguel Zammit, 24, had been sentenced to a year in prison and banned for life from holding a hunting licence when a court last September convicted him of having killed the four birds at Qawra Point in October 2021. The incident sparked widespread anger and prompted the government to ban hunting in the area. Zammit was arrested close to the site after an eyewitness reported the flamingoes being shot down and contacted the police. Investigators told the court that he insisted he had been aiming at a duck. He filed an appeal after a court convicted him of the poaching crime and handed him an effective jail term. On Monday, a court of appeal presided by judge Neville Camilleri relaxed his punishment. The court dismissed Zammit’s plea that there were other people in the area who could have been responsible for shooting down the birds and concluded that Zammit was clearly the one responsible. When delivering judgment the court observed that although the punishment appeared to be harsh, that alone did not...
↧