New York judge blocks bid to free upstate chimp Kiko

A New York judge on Friday blocked an animal rights group from pursuing a new lawsuit in Manhattan to free the chimpanzee Kiko from a Niagara Falls sanctuary, despite support from world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall.

State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe refused to sign an order sought by the nonprofit Nonhuman Rights Project to force directors of The Primate Sanctuary into her Manhattan court to defend keeping Kiko in captivity.

The animal rights group has argued for many years in various courts that chimpanzees are intelligent animals that share many traits with humans, and that holding them captive amounts to unlawful imprisonment.

But Ms Jaffe said the group previously filed four similar petitions in other US state courts and, despite the new affidavits from Goodall and others, did not show why its latest request to free Kiko belonged in Manhattan.

Issues bearing on Kiko's fate "are best addressed" in upstate courts that have handled similar cases, Ms Jaffe wrote.

Steven Wise, a lawyer for Nonhuman Rights Project and author of books including the 2000 title "Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals", said the group planned to appeal.

He also said state law lets the group bring its claims on Kiko's behalf in trial courts throughout New York, even though the chimpanzee is upstate.

The Primate Sanctuary did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last July, Ms Jaffe rejected the Nonhuman Rights Project's bid to free two other chimpanzees from a state university on Long Island, while acknowledging that the animals may in the future win limited legal rights.

In her affidavit, Ms Goodall said there was ample proof that chimpanzees "have well-defined duties and responsibilities," and that "common law personhood" should be afforded to them.

The landmark battle began in 2013 when the activist group asked a New York state court to declare a 26-year-old chimp named Tommy "a cognitively complex autonomous legal person with the fundamental legal right not to be imprisoned."

"These are the first cases in an open-ended, strategic litigation campaign," Mr Wise said at the time. "We're just going to keep filing suits."

New York was chosen for a number of cases because of its generally flexible view of requests for a writ of habeas corpus, the centuries-old right in English law to challenge unlawful detention, he said.

The 2013 case was the first habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of an animal.