The court rulings in the ongoing trials involving the Négy Mancs (Four Paws) organisation, which falsely claimed to be an animal charity, are expected next spring, the Ministry of Rural Development's Parliamentary State Secretary Gyula Budai told MTI.

In reply to a query from Hungarian news agency MTI, the State Secretary said that there are currently two claims for damages ongoing against Four Paws: one was initiated by Hungerit Zrt, an the other by Hortobágyi Lúdtenyésztő Zrt., both in 2012.

Mr. Budai reminded the press that Hungerit Zrt. had taken Four Paws to court because it had "lost significant markets and suffered an extremely large decrease in income as a result of the organisation's market-destroying activities, because Hungerit Zrt. had been misrepresented by Four Paws in its campaign against duck and goose fattening." Hortobágyi Lúdtenyésztő Zrt. initiated legal proceedings for similar reasons in view of the fact that the organisation had complained about the company's activities in its campaign against live feather plucking.

Mr. Budai also pointed out that in addition to the aforementioned legal proceedings, the activities of Four Paws in Hungary also has other criminal perspectives in view of the fact that campaign manager Gabriel Paun, in representation of Four Paws, had previously reported several producers to the relevant authorities for cruelty to animals. However, proceedings in all these cases were dropped because no crime had been committed.

Hortobágyi Lúdtenyésztő Zrt. then reported a crime of false accusation against unknown perpetrators to the Investigative Prosecutors Office in Debrecen in July of this year. The case was however refused by the Prosecutor's Office on the grounds that Gabriel Paun had not made a false accusation, but had merely drawn the wrong conclusion from the various facts available.

The State Secretary regards the reasons for the Prosecutor's Office's refusal of the case to be untenable, as it could lead to no case of false accusation every being realised in future, because anyone making false accusations could simply claim to have drawn the wrong conclusions. Although the plaintiff asked and received legal redress, the Hajdú Bihar County Chief Prosecutor's Office dismissed the claim, he added. According to Mr. Budai, the dismissal by the Chief Prosecutor's Office will prevent similar legal procedures from being launched in the case of other falsely accused producers.

He also mentioned that the plaintiff in one of the ongoing damages trials has asked that the Judge officially report the former campaign manager of Four Paws, Marcus Müller (whose real name is Friedrich Mülln), in view of the fact that several documents have been generated during the proceedings which include the non-existent name Marcus Müller, and this is tantamount to suspected "intellectual forgery of official documents", perjury and forgery of private documents. This request was also dismissed by the court.

In the opinion of Mr. Budai, suspected similar crimes with regard to the false name of Marcus Müller may also be relevant with relation to damages proceedings in progress at the Metropolitan Court of Budapest. Four Paws provided a temporary accommodation in Vienna as the Marcus Müller's address for the purposes of court summons. A non-existent address for a non-existent name, the State Secretary pointed out.

Mr. Budai said that in his opinion several criminal proceedings could be brought against Four Paws and some of its officers, in cases where there is a suitable level of suspicion and accusations are substantiated. The mentality shown so far b the police and the prosecution service may, however, mean that launching such proceedings would be pointless.

Summarising the above, the State Secretary said that the Hungarian prosecution service should take into account the social sensitivities of these cases, in view of the fact that the "rampage" of Four Paws has cause Hungarian agriculture and the water fowl sector billions of forints in damages. Dozens of families have gone bankrupt and continue to go bankrupt today because of the organisation's economically damaging activities and the false claims made by its offensive, negative campaign, as a result of which demand in both Western Europe and overseas for products made by Hungarian families who make a living from goose farming has ceased almost entirely, Gyula Budai said.

(MTI)