A man who admitted to illegally shooting and killing a protected bird has had his case thrown out by a magistrate’s court, after the court decided that the evidence against him was insufficient, BirdLife said.
The organisation said in a statement that the incident was witnessed and reported to the police in September last year by Bob Elliot and Ian Thomson, heads of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Investigation Unit in the UK and Scotland, respectively, who were attending BirdLife Malta’s Raptor Camp.
In their testimony both stated they had observed the defendant at Salina shooting at passing barn swallows, one of which fell to the ground when hit.
They then recorded video footage of the defendant picking up and handling the bird and using it to train his young retriever, and phoned the police to report the incident.
BirdLife claimed that ALE officers subsequently questioned the man, who, in his statement to the police, confessed to shooting at and killing a protected barn swallow while hunting at Salina.
But his defence lawyer argued that the video evidence did not actually show the hunter in the act of shooting the bird he was later seen handling, the organisation...
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