There have been some bizarre cases of animals being taken to court in historical times but recently a court in Bitola in Macedonia has found a bear guilty of theft. Zoran Kiseloski took a case against the bear after it stole honey from him. The man initially dealt with the bear himself by buying a generator and setting up lights and pumping turbo-folk music (by Ceca, a popular Serbian musician) to drive away the discerning bear. However, the criminal mastermind bid his time and lay in wait for the generator to run out whereupon he pounced and committed the crime. Apparently the trial has taken a year to finish but justice was served and the criminal fined 140,000 denar (about $3,500). The government paid the fine to Kiseloski, because, unfortunately, the bear proved smarter than the authorities, and is still at large. I’ll bet neither Kiseloski nor Ceca will get a proper night’s sleep till the criminal is locked up…
This story got a lot of press, the best of it was on the Times online.