At a trial held on March 24 in the city of Den Bosch, prosecutors accused Willy Selten of mixing horse meat with beef "on a large scale" in 2011 and 2012. While a scandal involving horse meat sold as beef engulfed Europe, his company was investigated in 2013.
Selten deserved imprisonment because his alleged fraud “damaged the Netherlands’ reputation as a meat-exporting nation," prosecutors charged in a written statement. Prosecutors also called him a “master of misinformation” who falsified documents to cover up selling cheap horse meat as beef. Dutch media reported that Selten denied deliberate fraud.
The court’s verdict will be delivered in two weeks.
