Pets the winners in US custody fight

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2007

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (AFP) — A US pet owner, a primate and the new field of "animal law" were all winners when Armani the capuchin monkey returned home to this Washington suburb after a legal battle that fudged the differences between man and beast.

"If he could speak, he would say: 'Thank you so much for fighting for me to come home, Mom. Thank you for never giving up on me,'" said Armani's "pet parent" Elyse Gazewitz as the little monkey squeaked and played on her lap in his specially built 4,000-dollar playroom.

Gazewitz bought Armani in 2006 from a breeder in Florida, but he was seized by the authorities in May this year in a case that had strong parallels to nightmarish child custody cases, in which one parent wrongfully accuses the other of abuse or kidnapping....