An Afghan refugee has been jailed for 30 months and banned from France for raping five goats and a lamb so brutally that one of them died.
The 19-year-old appeared in court in Aix-en-Provence on Monday where he was identified as Massoud S, convicted of “abuse resulting in death”, and put on a sex offenders register.
But although Massoud was caught in the act, his DNA matched semen found in the six animals, and his phone pinged at the farm, he told the court via an English translator he was innocent and insisted he was a “normal person”.
The court heard Massoud made partial admissions in a psychiatric evaluation where he said “they’re making a huge fuss about it when they’re just animals”, 20 Minutes reported.
He also told the psychiatrist that he thought the man who committed the crimes did so to avoid “raping a woman”, because a goat wouldn’t recognise him.
Massoud, who arrived in France just months earlier and said his family was killed in a bombing in Afghanistan, also claimed he was only at the farm because he missed the train back to the asylum seeker centre in Marseille where lived and needed somewhere to sleep.
The refugee was arrested in April after the owners of educational farm Le Refuge D’un Moment in Les Pennes-Mirabeau began finding their animals in distress and showing signs of sexual abuse in February and March.
Some of the animals were found with their legs bound and with genital injuries and lacerations, and when the owners set up cameras they were shocked to see Massoud carrying out violent sex acts.
A police BAC (Anti-Crime Brigade) unit then caught Massoud with his pants down raping a goat while wearing latex gloves, and he was arrested, charged and jailed while awaiting trial.
Cassandra Sortino, the owner of the non-profit educational farm, which is home to 250 abandoned or mistreated animals including horses, cows, llamas, sheep, goats and chickens for children to visit, said she was traumatised by Massoud’s crimes.
“We created this association to do good, and the animals were endangered within our own facility. We can’t explain it morally,” she told the court.
“We feel like we’ve failed.”
Header image: Goats on the farm (BFM Marseille Provence).
