“Legally correct but illogical” is how lawyers described a magistrate’s decision to order the police to charge six Birdlife activists with illegal possession of dead protected birds.

Though the magistrate was observing the law to the letter, it was not practical to arraign someone who posed for a photograph holding a protected bird that was illegally shot by somebody else.

On Wednesday, Magistrate Aaron Bugeja upheld a request by the Federation for Hunting and Conservation (FKNK) for the police to take criminal action against the bird lovers who featured in a picture released to the media in October 2012.

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