By Richard Torne
Two men who bludgeoned and stabbed at least three pigs to death for fun in a farm in Murcia have been handed a suspended prison sentence by a court in Cartagena.
The men, Antonio Jesús Jiménez Hernández and Juan Ismael Ricardo Rodas, were secretly filmed by a co-worker at the El Escobar farm in Fuente Álamo repeatedly stabbing the pigs – including a pregnant sow – with a broad sword.
The case first came to light in February 2012 after farm worker Marcos Verduga handed a copy of the video to animal rights association Animal Equality. In the harrowing six-minute footage the men are seen laughing as they club a number of pigs with a heavy iron bar before stabbing them with an 80-centimetre long sword, and celebrating the act afterwards.
