News: An unbearable travesty of justice

Sourced from Reuters. Does the bear have grounds for appeal? And how dangerous is 'turbo-folk music'?

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Macedonian court convicts bear of stealing honey

SKOPJE (Reuters) - A Macedonian court convicted a bear of theft and damage for stealing honey from a beekeeper who fought off the attacks with thumping "turbo-folk" music.

"I tried to distract the bear with lights and music because I heard bears are afraid of that," Zoran Kiseloski told top-selling daily Dnevnik after the year-long case of the bear vs. the beekeeper ended in the beekeeper's favour.

"So I bought a generator, lit up the area and put on songs of (Serbian 'turbo-folk' star) Ceca."

The bear stayed away for a few weeks, but came back when the generator ran out of power and the music fell silent, Kiseloski said, adding, "it attacked the beehives again."

A court in the city of Bitola found the bear guilty, and since it had no owner and belonged to a protected species, ordered the state to pay the 140,000 denars (1,726 pounds) damage it caused to the hives.

There was no information on the whereabouts of the bear.

(Reporting by Ljilja Cvekic; Editing by Ellie Tzortzi and Mary Gabriel)

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PS: Why not find your own bear here?