A ringleader in a global monkey torture network exposed by the BBC has been charged by US federal prosecutors.
Michael Macartney, 50, who went by the alias “Torture King”, was charged in Virginia with conspiracy to create and distribute animal-crushing videos.
Mr Macartney was one of three key distributors identified by the BBC Eye team during a year-long investigation into sadistic monkey torture groups.
Two women have also been charged in the UK following the investigation.
Warning: This article contains disturbing content
Mr Macartney, a former motorcycle gang member who previously spent time in prison, ran several chat groups for monkey torture enthusiasts from around the world on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
He didn’t do the actual stuff though, he got people in Indonesia to do it.
Okay? People in the comments are talking as if he’s the one doing the torturing and killing.
Alternately, you’re talking as if facilitating the whole network, including the torturing and killing, is somehow better than doing the actual torturing and killing.
I think you are projecting. I don’t see that anywhere. Just people saying that the sentence should be longer. Which it should be. It should be considered as something like federal trafficking with a minimum of 5 years and up to 40 years. I bet they would have sentenced him with more than 5 years if it was CP he was trafficking.
Read the book Whipping Star. It isn’t very long. If you get to the end and can’t see the corollary, I’d be happy to point them out to you.
The comment you originally responded to didn’t say that he did the torturing himself, so your unsolicited response that “he didn’t do the actual stuff though” absolutely comes across as an attempt to minimize the things that he is accused of doing according to the article.
That sounds like a defense to me. You think we should give him slack because of his distance to the violence he was orchestrating.
Meanwhile, Charles Manson is in prison, even though he never killed anyone with his own hands.
Which adds a while other level of hypocrisy. Why can’t he have good ol’ Americans do the job? Are they not good enough for him?
Also don’t care that he did not directly do it. He was facilitating it and it would not have happened on the same scale without his help. So in essence, he absolutely caused the torture of monkeys. Should someone who goes a hitman not be charged with anything? The hit man isn’t killing the victim without pay so obviously the person hiring one should be charged.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50137450
This was the example which came to mind, where the original person was sentenced with the strongest punishment, then the subsequent people each received subsequently lighter ones.
However this disagrees with my stance, and gave the person who requested a hitman a longer sentence than the two who committed the murder (24, v 16 and 20 years respectively).
I upvoted you, by the way, in case you thought it was me who downvoted.
