Prague, April 6 (CTK) – The Prague Municipal Court on Thursday imposed a one-year suspended sentence with a 1.5-year probation and a 200,000-crown fine on a Ukrainian who smuggled 232 strictly protected chameleons and geckos from Madagascar to Prague in 2016, many of whom died during transport.
The court’s spokeswoman, Marketa Puci, told CTK that the court found Nazar Hanushak guilty of an unlawful handling and mistreatment of animals. The verdict is valid.
Hanushak was detained at Prague’s Vaclav Havel Airport on June 1, 2016. Dozens of animals were crammed in two baskets with leaves and little twigs in a textile case. Three lizards died during the flight and another 73 gradually followed in the Prague Zoo’s rescue centre.
“The animals showed signs of thirst and hunger which together with the stress and bad conditions of the transport caused them suffering, or possibly death,” the appeals senate of the Prague Municipal Court said and upheld the verdict of a lower court.
Hanushak, 26, defended himself saying he did not know he needs an import permit.
He said he visited Madagascar as a tourist and that he bought the animals at an open-air market for low prices.
Hanushak claimed he wanted to keep the lizards at home in Ukraine where he also has snakes, spiders and tortoises. He said he wanted to donate some of the animals.
However, the court said the rare animals only occur in Madagascar and that their commercial price is relatively high, ranging from an equivalent of 1500 to 3000 crowns apiece.
An attenuating circumstance was that Hanushak was not punished in the Czech Republic before.
Unless he pays the fine, he will spend one year in prison.
Most of 156 rescued chameleons were transferred to the zoological garden in Plzen, west Bohemia, a part remained in the Prague Zoo, and a few of them went to the Zoopark Zajezd in central Bohemia.
