OSLO, Norway (AP) — A beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation that it was a Russian spy, was not shot to death as claimed by animal rights groups but died of a bacterial infection, Norwegian police said Friday.
A final autopsy by Norway's Veterinary Institute “concludes that the probable cause of death was bacterial infection -- possibly as a result of a wound in the mouth from a stuck stick,” Amund Preede Revheim, head of the North Sea and Environment section of the police in south-western Norway said.
“There have been no findings from the autopsy that indicate that the whale has been shot,” he stressed, adding that the autopsy had been “made difficult by the fact that many of the whale’s organs were very rotten.” As there was no indication of foul play, there was no reason to start a criminal investigation into its death, Preede Revheim said.
The tame beluga, which was first spotted in 2019 not far from Russian waters with a harness reading “Equipment St. Petersburg,” had been nicknamed "Hvaldimir,” combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It was found floating in a southern Norway bay on Aug. 31.
In September, animal advocate groups OneWhale and NOAH filed a police report saying that the animal’s wounds suggested it was intentionally killed.
They pointed at several wounds found on the animal’s skin, including what was interpreted as a bullet hole.
“Assessments made by the Veterinary Institute and the police’s forensic technicians are that these are not gunshot wounds. X-rays of the chest and head were carried out without any projectiles or other metal fragments being detected,” police said in a statement.
Earlier, police had described a stick about 35 centimeters (14 inches) long and 3 centimeters (1 inch) wide which was found wedged in the animal’s mouth, its stomach was empty and its organs had broken down, police said. No further details were given.
The 4.2-meter (14-foot) long and 1,225-kilogram (2,700-pound) whale was first spotted by fishermen not far from the Arctic town of Hammerfest.
Its harness, along with what appeared to be a mount for a small camera, led to media speculation that it was a “spy whale.” Experts say the Russian navy is known to have trained whales for military purposes. Media reports also have speculated that the whale might have been trained as a therapy animal.
There was no immediate reaction from OneWhale or NOAH.
FILE - In this photo taken in April 2019 a beluga whale found in Arctic Norway is fed. (Jorgen Ree Wiig, Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries via AP)
The European Union's top court said Friday that some FIFA rules on player transfers are contrary to European Union legislation relating to competition and freedom of movement, in a ruling that will likely lead to a shakeup of the soccer market's regulations and change the sport's economy.
The court's ruling came after former France international Lassana Diarra legally challenged FIFA rules following a dispute with a club dating back to a decade ago. Diarra argued that FIFA's restrictions meant he was unable to find a new club after his contract with Russian club Lokomotiv Moscow was terminated in 2014.
FIFA's rules state that if a player terminates his contract without “just cause," the player and any club wishing to sign him are jointly liable for paying compensation to the previous club.
“Those rules hinder the free movement of players and competition between clubs,” the court said in a statement. “The rules in question are such as to impede the free movement of professional footballers wishing to develop their activity by going to work for a new club.”
The court added that current rules “impose considerable legal risks, unforeseeable and potentially very high financial risks as well as major sporting risks on those players and clubs wishing to employ them which, taken together, are such as to impede international transfers of those players.”
Diarra had signed a four-year contract with Lokomotiv Moscow in 2013. The deal was terminated a year later after Diarra was unhappy with alleged pay cuts.
Lokomotiv Moscow applied to the FIFA dispute resolution chamber for compensation and the player submitted a counterclaim seeking compensation for unpaid wages. The Court of Arbitration for Sport found the Russian club terminated the contract with Diarra “with just cause” and the player was ordered to pay 10.5 million euros ($11.2 million).
Diarra claimed his search for a new club was hampered by FIFA's rules stipulating that any new side would be jointly responsible with him for paying compensation to Lokomotiv.
The former Real Madrid player also argued that a potential deal with Belgian club Charleroi fell through because of the FIFA rules, and sued FIFA and the Belgian federation at a Belgian court for damages and loss of earnings of six million euros ($7 million). With the lawsuit still going through Belgian courts, the case was referred to the European Court of Justice for a ruling.
Although the court said FIFA transfer regulations can help maintain a form of stability within professional squads and help guarantee the regularity of competitions, it insisted that in Diarra’s case “the rules in question nevertheless seem, subject to verification (by the Belgian court) in a number of respects, to go beyond what is necessary to pursue that objective.”
The Diarra case, which is supported by the global players’ union FIFPro, went through FIFA judicial bodies before the 2016 election of FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who has made it a priority to modernize transfer market rules.
Concerning competition rules, the court slammed FIFA's rulings for restricting and preventing cross-border competition between European clubs.
“The Court recalls that the possibility of competing by recruiting trained players plays an essential role in the professional football sector and that rules which place a general restriction on that form of competition, by immutably fixing the distribution of workers between the employers and in cloistering the markets, are similar to a no-poach agreement," it said.
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FILE - In this file photo dated Friday, Sept. 14, 2018, Paris-Saint-Germain player Lassana Diarra during a French League One soccer match against Saint-Etienne at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)
