The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday rejected laboratory reports on the Australian sheep suspected of being infected with harmful diseases, directing authorities to send fresh samples to London for further tests.
More than 7,000 sheep from a shipment of over 20,000 that was rejected in Bahrain on concerns over scabby mouth were inhumanely slaughtered en masse in Pakistan, to where they were forwarded.
The Sindh Livestock Department ordered the cull, which was halted after Perth-based exporter Wellard and Pakistani importer PK Livestock secured a High Court injunction and thousands of sheep were brutally killed, reportedly by untrained workers. The SHC ordered the fresh reports to be presented in court within three weeks.
The Sindh High Court had ordered provisional testing by veterinary and microbiological experts of the nearly 20,000 sheep imported from Australia.
There have been disputes within the medical committee over the medical condition of the sheep, which some say suffer from the highly dangerous anthrax virus.
Justice Maqbool Baqar of the SHC, hearing the case on Friday, expressed his reservations over the report by the Islamabad national Laboratory, asking for fresh samples to be sent to London for further tests and report to be submitted by October 19. The court also issued orders to the concerned Police superintendent for installation of CCTV cameras and security measures around the farm where the sheep are being kept. Also on Friday, Minister for Agriculture Joe Ludwig said a full investigation would be conducted by DAFF into the reports. Senator Ludwig said the live export regulation system worked and blamed Wellard on Thursday for losing control of its supply chain. It is understood representatives from the company were forcibly removed by armed police from the culling site.
