A 60-year-old farmer has received a nine-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of €800 after for attempting to import vaccines for sheep and goat pox from Turkey.
He was arrested last Wednesday at the Kipi border station in Evros and charged with illegally importing pharmaceuticals not approved by the European Union.
The defendant’s lawyer told Alexandroupoli Single-Member Misdemeanor Court that his client was a farmer and father of four children who was not involved in livestock farming.
He had received the package containing 24 vials of vaccine on behalf of a livestock farmer, with the intention of delivering them to a veterinarian in Rodopi.
The vials, which contained 1,200 doses of vaccine, were seized and will be destroyed.
The current outbreak of sheep pox, now its 14th month, has led to the culling of more than 260,000 sheep and goats – roughly 2% of the national herd – up to last month, forcing 1,100 farms to shut down.