Banged-up animal rights campaigners released

From the Austrian Times

02. 09. 08. - 17:00

Banged-up campaigners released

Austria's State Prosecution has ruled that the animal rights protesters imprisoned without charge by the government for over 100 days are to be released.

The State Prosecution explained that the government had run out of time and were no longer entitled to keep the campaigners locked up whilst it tried to build a case against them.

Erich Habitzl, spokesman for the State Prosecution in Wiener Neustadt, said that the release of the nine campaigners has no effect on the ongoing investigations and that evidence will now be checked to find out whether there will be a trial or not.

After being released, Dr Martin Balluch, the head of the group, said that he cannot understand at all why he was detained. Balluch had already announced he will continue campaigning for tortured animals.

Balluch, who worked alongside physicist Steven Hawking for eight years at Cambridge University, said: "I am not a criminal. Everything I did is 100 per cent legal. I did not destroy anything, I did not cause or incite and violence. I would do everything I did exactly the same again."

Yesterday, Greens party boss Alexander Van der Bellen asked Balluch to run as an independent candidate for the party in the 28 September election.

One of the ten accused activists had been released on 13 August while the other nine have been kept in detention until today (Tuesday).

David Hill