A professional cyclist has been fined for shooting dead the pet cat of his neighbor, San Marino’s former head of state.
Italian Antonio Tiberi, a junior time trial world champion in 2019, was fined €4,000 by a court in the mountainous microstate of San Marino, Italian press reported.
He said he was testing an air rifle and first took aim at a road sign before “stupidly” trying to hit a cat. “To my surprise I actually hit it. I had no intention of killing the animal, in fact I was convinced that the weapon wasn’t lethal.”
According to Gazzetta dello Sport, the incident took place on June 21, 2022.
The unfortunate cat belonged to Federico Pedini Amati, San Marino’s minister of tourism and a former head of state (known locally as a Captain Regent).
”The cat didn’t bother anyone,” Pedini Amati was quoted as saying by Italy’s Corriere della Sera. “It had been with us for a long time. My three-year-old daughter Lucia loved it. You cannot kill a pet and get away with a €4,000 fine.”
