Estonia's biggest ever poaching case heading to court
After nearly two years of investigation, pre-trial proceedings against alleged Pärnu County poachers have reached the final stages, Maaleht reported.
The case is the largest of its kind in Estonia's legal history.
"The prosecutor's office hopes to move to the next stage of the proceedings — to court — as quickly as possible," prosecutor Indrek Kalda told Maaleht, while the paper said the case is a key one.
Olav Avarsalu, Deputy Director General of the Environmental Board, in spring 2024 called the case the biggest organised poaching incident handled by his agency, with environmental damages initially estimated at €44,000.
Searches of the suspects' homes revealed evidence such as illegal weapons, ammunition, wild animal skins and other evidence, notably that 20 lynx – a protected species – and undisclosed other species had been killed during the poaching activities.
The activities came to light in March 2024 when Environmental Board officials, in cooperation with the Police and Border Guard Board's (PPA) Western Prefecture, detained four men on suspicion of poaching, plus one other man – executive director of the Pärnu County Hunters' Association Eero Nõmm – on suspicion of aiding and abetting.
Criminal proceedings had already been initiated a year earlier; however, now the investigation is complete and the Environmental Board has sent the criminal case files to the prosecutor's office.
"After reviewing the collected evidence, we have made the files available to the defense counsel, who now have the opportunity to submit requests for additional procedural actions if they deem it necessary," Kalda said.
The prosecutor's office will next be able to decide on sending the criminal case to court.
The criminal proceedings are being led by the Western District Prosecutor's Office.
Protected species in Estonia such as the Eurasian lynx may be hunted, but only to set regulated quotas.
The case also came at a time of debate over the Environmental Board's (Keskkonnaamet) powers, for instance to aid it in halting vehicles where needed, or for its own vehicles to be decked out with blue or other flashing lights, sirens and emergency liveries.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
Source: Maaleht
