A 19-year-old Afghan man, Massoud S., was tried Monday at the Aix-en-Provence court for sexual assault against six goats, one of which died, and a 6-month-old lamb at an educational farm. He has been convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison and a ban from French territory.
Afghan migrant Massoud S. was initially charged with “serious abuse or act of cruelty against a domestic, tame, or captive animal.” He continued to deny the rapes in this case despite DNA evidence and being caught redhanded raping a goat. He even told a court psychologist that anyone who did rape the animals only did it to “not rape a woman” since “a goat could not identify him afterward.”
The sexual assaults occurred between February and April and on top of the DNA evidence, his phone location also had him pinged to the crime scene.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he told the magistrates regarding the ample evidence against him.
Massoud S. reportedly repeatedly raped the animals, which all belonged to an animal shelter and educational farm “Un moment” in Les Pennes-Mirabeau, near Marseille.
Cassandra Sortino, the owner of the establishment, remains deeply traumatized by the mass rape of her animals by the Afghan man.
“We set up this association to do good, and the animals were in danger in our own structure. We cannot explain it morally,” she testified. “We feel like we failed.”
According to Swiss outlet 20 Minutes, “Representing herself without a lawyer, she searched in vain for an answer to her central question: why?”
The incident began in February when she noticed that there were ligature marks on some of the animals’ legs. A veterinarian discovered injuries to the animals’ genitals and traces of blood.
This was enough evidence for Sortino to install a surveillance camera, where she saw a man sneaking into her property and raping animals. She remained in contact with police, and in April, the Afghan man was finally arrested. At the moment he was apprehended, police discovered the man in the middle of the act of raping the goat, wearing latex gloves, and with his pants down.
Massoud S. claimed that he was in the barn because he missed his train on the night he was arrested to Marseille, where he lives in an asylum seeker center in the city’s 3rd arrondissement.
Massoud S. required a translator during his trial but said he felt “full of shame” when describing his strict religious upbringing. He arrived in France in November 2025 and claims he lost his family during a bombing raid in his home country.
A psychiatrist reported the man suffers from no mental disorders, however, he reportedly said while talking about the rapes: “We make a big deal out of it when they’re just animals,”
“I’m a normal person,” he said when confronted with these statements in court.
He has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for charges reclassified as “abuse leading to death.” He is also banned from French territory and must register into a database for sexual offenders.
Sortino is not done with the Afghan and plans to appeal the sentence.
“I would have liked to understand,” Sortino said.
Previous cases
Last year in Germany, a shocking case has emerged from the beautiful town of Oberneufnach in Bavaria, which involved a 52-year-old Turkish asylum seeker allegedly breaking into a stable and sexually abusing ponies.
The man, who is from a refugee shelter in the nearby town of Anhofen, was arrested after he was caught on surveillance video.
The man broke into the horse farm at 6:45 p.m. while the family was having dinner. They heard the dog barking and then looked on surveillance monitors, where they saw the man in the stable with his pants down on top of one of the animals.
The boyfriend then ran to the stables to chase down the man, but he had already fled the scene. He continued his pursuit of the suspect though and eventually caught him. Police arrived and placed the man under arrest.
In 2023, a 27-year-old suspect was arrested after he was caught on a surveillance camera raping a pony at a stable south of Hamburg. The 18-year-old pony, which is named “Carrie,” was abused by the man at 1 a.m., with footage showing the man calmly walking onto the property and starting to attack the defenseless animal.
Steffi B. released the footage to German newspaper Bild, which posted stills of the perpetrator on its web publication.
The attack happened in Birkenmoor, which is in Harburg, just a few kilometers from the Hamburg city center.
Even the petting zoo at the park has not been safe. In 2017, a Syrian migrant raped a pony there in front of children.
“My babysitter was out with our son in Görlitzer Park. They witnessed the man sexually assault the pony,” one woman told Berliner Morgenpost at the time. The babysitter took a photo of the man as he raped the pony and provided it to police. The migrant was banned from the petting zoo in response, but it is unclear if he was ever charged by police.
