01/17/06 Animal Killers Endanger Humans too
Animal Friends' reaction to the case of air rifle shooting at the cat
Animal Friends organization is indignant to learn of Zlatko Adilovic shooting a five month old cat Kiki in Zagreb suburb Trnava, with an air rifle, on January 14, 2006, while it was sitting on its guardian's stairway. The tyrant said he did it because he found the cat near the meat in his garage. The unfortunate cat suffered a rear legs paralysis and had to be euthanized today due to the severe injuries.
The cat's guardian, along with other neighbors, say that Zlatko Adilovic has demonstrated aggressive behavior at multiple occasions and threatened to kill his neighbors and their companion animals. His neighbors were afraid of him because he owned an air rifle, which was confiscated from him by the police after he shot the cat.
With this act, Zlatko Adilovic commited a crime under the local Gun Law, Article 39, for endangering public security, Law Of Public Peace And Order, Article 30 for public animal molesting or harassing (penalty is pecuniary equivalent of 50-200 DEM); Criminal Law, Article 260 (penalty is pecuniary equivalent of 150 daily wages or six months in prison) for intentional inflicting of pain to an animal and exposing it to suffering for the purposes of demonstrating brute force, and Animal Welfare Act, Article 38, (penalty is amount of 5,000-10,000 HRK).
Violent behavior towards animals has been known for a long period of time as an indicator of dangerous psychopathology that is not referring only to animals. Researches have shown that men who repeatedly torture cats and dogs also have a high level of aggression towards people too, and that they ‘practiced’ deadly shooting from weapons on animals first.
Zlatko Adilovic pulled the trigger at the cat in front of his neighbor's door, who already knew him for his shooting at birds, and for his death threats to them and their pets, and thus badly endangering those in the area.
Animal Friends and Zagreb Association of Animal Welfare Organizations (SUZA) will file a criminal complaint to the County State Attorney's Office, where they will demand the severest penalty provided by law. Adequate punishment for animal harassing and killing shows a state's civilization level and its political maturity, so we expect Croatian legislation to deal with incidents of animal torturing in accordance with that.