The ransacking of GMO vines fined

[recyclinage]

A more lenient sentence than the requisitions. Pierre Azelvandre had ransacked seventy feet of transgenic vines on the premises of the National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA), on September 7 in Colmar. The 46-year-old biologist and anti-GMO activist was fined 2 euros yesterday and paid a symbolic euro in damages. During his criminal trial on October 000, the prosecutor had asked for a four-month suspended prison sentence and a 7 euro fine.

Cultivated since 2005, genetically modified rootstocks were used for research against knotweed, a virus that destroys vines. Pierre Azelvandre destroyed them, he explains, "so that a public debate can take place" on GMOs and, according to his lawyer, to put an end to an "illegal" experiment. At the time of the events, INRA was awaiting authorization to continue its research. Since then, the Strasbourg administrative court has ruled the plantation outlawed, under a European directive. W

PW

http://www.20minutes.fr/article/364828/ ... amende.php