Sheep farmer Gianni Attard.

A Gozo farmer’s 220 sheep, which had not been registered, can be culled after a magistrate revoked an order stopping their slaughter, unless an appeal is filed.

Magistrate Josette Demicoli ruled the culling was justified to safeguard public health. She said the decision by the veterinary authorities was taken within the parameters of the law because of an automatic suspicion that unregistered animals were ill.

Gianni Attard had taken court action against the Department of Veterinary Services in an attempt to stop it from slaughtering the sheep.

In November 2012, the authorities had culled 216 sheep while Mr Attard was under arrest at the Victoria police station in connection with the registration issue of the animals.

The sheep, estimated to cost in the region of €520,000, had been tested and none of them were sick.

The rest of the herd had been confined to Mr Attard’s farm in Għarb where two police officers are stationed to ensure no animals are removed and their produce is not sold. The 24-hour police surveillance cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of euros.

Mr Attard insisted he had been telling the authorities since July 2010 to register the sheep and tag them. Magistrate Demicoli did not go into this, arguing that the court was not a means for him to appeal the culling but to determine whether the discretion exercised by the department to cull the sheep was legal or not.

She said the law laid down that all livestock, irrespective of age, had to be tagged before being transferred from one farm to another and this for traceability purposes. Furthermore, a farmer had to keep a register of the number of sheep he owned, updated with births and deaths.

The magistrate quoted inter­national regulations which emph­asise traceability from birth until such time that the animal is prepared for human consumption.

Any unregistered animal was automatically presumed to be sick because its origins could not be traced. This constituted a public health hazard.

Any unregistered animal is automatically presumed to be sick because its origins cannot be traced

The court noted that Mr Attard was not a registered farmer, his sheep were not registered and the premises on which the animals were held were not covered by the necessary permits.

“When all this is taken into consideration, there was lack of proper traceability of food-producing animals, so the Director of Veterinary Services had reasonable cause for suspicion and, thus, the discretion he exercised to order the culling was taken within the parameters of the law,” the magistrate said in her judgment.

She commented on the “large number” of cheeselets found during an inspection, noting they “were surely not for his personal consumption” and adding that they were produced “by unregistered animals on a farm which was not equipped and hygienically not suitable to produce such products”.

She therefore revoked the order she had temporarily issued in November 2012.

If Mr Attard does not appeal in the period laid down by law the authorities would be able to return to the farm to cull the remaining sheep.