Used the animal as a soccer ball – kicked it several meters into the air • Charged
This summer, several witnesses told that a drunk man in his 25s kicked a hedgehog in Kalmar, something that Today’s Vimmerby was the first to report on.
According to witness statements, he used the hedgehog as a soccer ball and kicked the animal “several meters” into the air, before letting it fall onto the cobblestones.
At first the hedgehog would have scuttled with its legs, but after a while became still.
Photos in the police’s preliminary investigation show the dead hedgehog lying on its stomach with its hind legs stretched backwards and blood from its mouth.
Says he did it in self defense
In interrogation, the man says that he was so drunk at the time that he does not remember the incident.
– What I know that evening was that we walked around Kalmar and drank. That’s kind of it. I know I woke up here in the drunk cell. That’s the only thing, he says in police interrogation.
But when the man spoke to the police in connection with the evening in question, he allegedly asked if it was about “the thing with the hedgehog” and said that he “accidentally kicked twice”. When the police asked how he accidentally kicked it, the man allegedly replied that he was afraid of the hedgehog and did it in self-defense.
The man is said to have also tried to run from the police, but was caught and taken into care under the law on the treatment of intoxicated persons.
“Serious suffering of a particularly wanton nature”
In order to assess how much suffering the hedgehog has been subjected to, they have asked for a statement from Sweden’s University of Agriculture, writes Dagens Vimmerby. The statement states:
“How long the hedgehog had been exposed to suffering cannot be assessed based on the available information, but according to witness statements, death did not occur immediately, but the hedgehog may have been exposed to severe suffering for several minutes leading up to its death. The hedgehog is thus deemed to have been subjected to serious suffering of a particularly reckless nature.”
Now the man is charged with gross animal cruelty and hunting crime, because hedgehogs are red-listed and the crime was committed with “a particularly painful hunting method.”
“The crime should be assessed as serious because the act was particularly reckless and meant serious suffering for the hedgehog,” writes the prosecutor in the lawsuit.
The man risks being sentenced to up to four years in prison.