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PARIS: The former director of a French meat processing company was sentenced on Tuesday to six months in prison for a scandal in 2013, according to which millions of meals were withdrawn from supermarkets Europeans after discovering that they contained horse meat instead of beef.
A Paris court found Jacques Poujol of Spanghero guilty of fraud, the company at the heart of the scandal, and ordered the confiscation of € 100,000 ($ 110,000) in cash seized from his home by investigators.
He was on trial with a colleague and two meat traders from the Netherlands.
The so-called racket would have seen the cheap horse meat from Belgium, Romania and Canada imported into France, then mistakenly labeled as beef, the Spanghero meat processing company and the Dutch middlemen pocketing the profits.
The four men were accused of having sold more than 500 tonnes of beef cooked horse meat to Comigel, a maker of ready meals, between 2012 and 2013.
After the UK inspectors discovered the fraud, European supermarkets in 2013 removed millions of suspected food products such as lasagna and frozen meatballs, reinforcing concerns about the meat industry and safety on the continent.
Poujol, who had already spent four months behind bars during the investigation, declined to comment after the publication of the decision.
Patrice Monguillon, director of the Spanghero plant in the south of France, was sentenced to one year in prison suspended.
The Dutch intermediary Johannes Fasen has been sentenced to two years in prison and his former partner Hendricus Windmeijer to one year suspended sentence.
The two Dutch were convicted of a similar fraud in 2012 in their home country.
The four defendants were acquitted of conspiracy charges, although the two French were also convicted of tampering with the evidence.
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