Man arrested after killing 1,100 chickens of fearful neighbor: ‘He cut down my tree, I scared his chickens’
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In an intriguing court case reported on Chinese state media, a man identified only by his surname Zhou was sentenced to prison this week after a court found him guilty of scaring to death more than 1,100 chickens of a neighbor he was staying with. .
They are said to have been at odds since their neighbor, Zhong, cut down Gu trees without permission in April 2022.
Zhou responded by sneaking into Zhong’s farm at night on more than one occasion, the Hengyang District Court in central China’s Hunan Province heard.
It is not clear what the man’s intentions were, but the flashlight he used caused the flock to panic, and as the birds huddled in a corner in fear, hundreds of them died in the crowd that followed.
The first time Gu trespassed on his neighbor’s property, he caused a quarrel in which 500 chickens died. The police detained him and forced him to pay Zhong compensation of 3,000 yuan (US$436).
But he did not stop there and returned to Zhong’s possessions again, this time killing 640 chickens.
On Tuesday, the Hengyang Court ruled that Gu had deliberately caused “property loss” to Zhong.
Chinese authorities said more than 1,100 chickens died, estimated at a total of 13,840 yuan (2015 US dollars).
The court ordered Gu to serve six months in prison with one year of probation – a sentence that took into account the remorse Gu had shown for his crime.
CNN
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