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The four activists who have gone public with their charge sheets (including Martin Balluch and Christian Moser, who were kept for three months in custody) are charged under Section 278a of the Austrian Penal Code. They are said to be members of a criminal organisation which is allegedly responsible for crimes, such as threats or damage to property, that have been committed by unknown individuals against companies or individuals associated with the fur trade, animal experiments, hunting or similar use of animals.
But looking carefully into the charge sheets, the only proven "connections" between the four activists and the criminal offences are as follows
- although the perpetrators of the criminal offences are unknown, it seems likely that the motivation of their acts was the same as the motivation of the four activists for taking part in legal protests and campaigning - e.g. to encourage a shop to stop selling fur;
- as a journalist for a radio programme, Martin Balluch has sometimes reported the fact that these offences were committed;
- the four activists have occasionally expressed opinions, mostly on internet platforms, which the prosecution sees as evidence of them being in favour of these offences.
Based on this "evidence", the prosecution claims that the four activists' legal campaigning activities and the unknown people's criminal offences must be considered to both be part of one campaign run by a criminal organisation, which means that even the legal campaigning is in fact criminal as it supports this alleged criminal organisation.
This is why normal NGO activities, such as filming the conditions on animal farms, organising demonstrations, conferences and workshops, storing leaflets against hunting or discussing campaigning strategies, are all indeed listed in the charge sheets as evidence against the activists, without even attempting to prove that any criminal offence was planned or carried out as part of these activities. This is obviously a complete negation of the rule of law.
The activists are now threatened with up to 5 years imprisonment. With 115 witnesses invited by the prosecution, the trial is expected to last six months. This not only means an extreme disruption of the activists' personal lives, but also the costs of legal defence amounting to €200,000 per lawyer. The Austrian law gives the activists no right to be reimbursed for these legal costs even if they were eventually found not guilty.