Wife of Rolling Stone to sue over horse deaths in Poland: report
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
09.04.2016 13:48
Shirley Watts, wife of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, is threatening to sue Polish government officials over the death of two Arabian mares she kept at the famous state-run Janów Podlaski stud in eastern Poland, Britain’s Guardian daily has reported.
Photo: Pexels.com
The Guardian cited Shirley Watts as saying: “I am going to sue them because of the way they treated my mares.”
The two 16-year-old horses, Amra and Preria, died while in the care of the Janów Podlaski stud, to which Watts had loaned four mares to help expand a valuable Arabian bloodline, the Guardian said.
The paper added that Watts’s two surviving mares, which are pregnant, were being transported to Britain.
The latest death occurred on 2 April, following one on 16 March. Both horses died from abdominal spasms. Another mare perished in October 2015.
Polish Minister of Agriculture Krysztof Jurgiel said on Tuesday that an investigation into the deaths of the horses is being carried out by a prosecutor's office.
Jurgiel has claimed that a third party could have been involved in the horses' deaths.
A new head of the stud farm was appointed in February by Poland’s new Law and Justice (PiS) government, replacing longstanding head Marek Trela, sparking protests in the equestrian world.
The first death, of a mare named Pianissima, took place in October, before the dismissal of Trela.
The ministry cited alleged improper veterinary supervision as one of the reasons for his dismissal. However, critics of the dismissal said the move was political, and that the government wanted their own man in the job. (pk)