Star the dog spent 14 hours buried alive after being shot with a homemade gun made out of a water pipe that muffles the sound, a crime the duty magistrate yesterday described as “exaggerated animal cruelty”.
The perpetrator, 44-year-old farmer, Alfred Vella, of Birżebbuġa, yesterday admitted not only to animal cruelty but to manufacturing the gun and being in possession of stuffed protected birds.
He was jailed for three months and fined €10,000 but is currently out on bail against a personal guarantee of €5,000, after he signed an immediate appeal against the sentence.
Mr Vella had told the police that he believed the dog was dead when he buried her and that he never meant to torture her but to kill her as they would have done at the dogs’ home. His motive for trying to kill her was that she was old.
The tragic story of Star hit the international headlines after she was first discovered near Għar Ħasan by Animal Welfare Department officers on May 19.
Whimpering, she poked her nose through the soil of the grave, which managed to save her life. However, she died on June 6 from an acute inflammation of the pancreas, barely 24 hours after hundreds rallied in a protest against animal cruelty sparked by her story.
During Mr Vella’s arraignment yesterday, Police Inspector Ramon Mercieca said Mr Vella told them that when officers turned up to investigate the crime they had walked right past the homemade gun and not even seen it.
He had later cut it up with a saw and threw it into a rubbish dump. He had originally constructed the gun for illegal hunting but then used the contraption, which takes a single cartridge, to shoot the dog so that the muffled sound it produced would not draw any attention to him.
He told them that he had first tied her up because the gun couldn’t quite fire immediately and accuracy was an issue. He then shot her and buried her. He also told them that she had been in the grave for some 14 hours before being discovered.
At the start of the arraignment, defence lawyer Peter Paul Zammit, asked the court for there to be a ban on his client’s name being published on the ground that his family would suffer the consequences of his mistakes.
Rebutting, Inspector Mercieca told the court that his whole family knew what he had done and asked how the court could issue an order to protect the very people who didn’t come forward.
Magistrate Edwina Grima turned down the request.
In submissions on punishment, the inspector said that the accused knew exactly what he was doing and if he really wanted to end her life quickly then he could have used one of the seven guns he had in his possession.
Dr Zammit said the message that should be sent to society was that the courts were not out for a pound of flesh but after justice because, after all, this was the 21st Century.
This argument was immediately cut down by the inspector, who said this was the 21st Century and yet “barbaric acts” like this happened.
The lawyer then pointed out that his client had a clean police record and told the court that it shouldn’t satisfy the public thirst for retribution, adding that his client had cooperated with the police.
Inspector Mercieca in reply said that Mr Vella only cooperated a month and a day later after his first interrogation and even then it took four hours for him to admit to the crime.
In the judgment yesterday, Magistrate Grima said two serious crimes had been committed: the first, “exaggerated animal cruelty” and the second, the manufacturing of a firearm.
She said a judgment should not try to satisfy the “public outcry” and although Mr Vella had expressed his regret at the way things turned out and said he never meant to torture the dog, the court had to find a balance between the crime committed and justice.
In her considerations the magistrate quoted case law: “Society, through the courts, must show its abhorrence of particular types of crime, and the only way in which the courts can show this is by the sentences they pass. The courts do not have to reflect opinion. On the other hand they must not disregard it. Perhaps the main duty of the court is to lead public opinion...”
‘False’ report turns out to be true
The neighbouring farmer to Alfred Vella, the man who admitted yesterday to shooting Star the dog and then burying her, has found himself the subject of an incredible coincidence after he admitted last week to filing a false police report against Mr Vella regarding the cruelty case.
Carmel Sacco, 45, of Kirkop, had told police that he had seen Mr Vella carry out the heinous act of animal cruelty. But when the police checked out his story there was no evidence to corroborate it.
In fact, Mr Sacco admitted to filing a false police report last week against Mr Vella and said that he did so because of a long standing argument between them over planning permits.
When the police began investigating his claims and what he allegedly saw, Mr Sacco’s dates and times did not add up. Furthermore, when the police checked to see if he was in the area where Star was shot, they found out through mobile phone records that he was not. Mr Sacco had inadvertently “falsely” accused Mr Vella of the crime that Mr Vella was later to admit to.
Mr Sacco is currently out on bail after his lawyers Gianluca Caruana Curran and Charmaine Cherrett asked for a pre-sentencing report to be drawn up.