[Taxacom] The dangers of conservation work

[Paul van Rijckevorsel]

[continued]

Several developments over the weekend. At
http://www.helpmarcvanroosmalen.nl/index.php/nieuw_processtuk
there is a Dutch translation of a judicial paper (habeas corpus),
specifying the charge concerning the naming of new species.

The legal reasoning appears to be the following:
* van Roosmalen was a Civil Servant (up to 2003), with an exclusive contract
that prohibited any activities "on the side".
* Brazilian law has a provision for Civil Servants who appropriate or sell
off government property under their care (Art. 312).
* The new species were discovered by van Roosmalen while a Civil Servant. As
the right to name them apparently can bring in money this is to be
considered government property of considerable value. In offering on the web
to name species after a benefactor van Roosmalen was offering to sell
something. As one can only sell what one owns it logically follows that he
had appropriated this government property for his own use.
* The verdict on this charge alone was a sentence of eight years and three
months, to be served in a high-security institution.

The report is that he has now been moved back to the fifty-to-a-cell
institution where he was confined before.

The website offers a draft letter which can be sent to a few suggested
adresses (http://www.helpmarcvanroosmalen.nl/index.php/petitie; this draft
obviously still needs work). The list of adressees has not been finalized.

Paul