An orangutan born in the former East Germany, who has spent all of her life in captivity is being moved to an animal sanctuary in the US after a court granted her similar legal rights to humans.

Sandra, a 33-year-old orangutan, was born in a zoo in Germany in 1986. She was later sold to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1995. She has spent much of her life in a solitary enclosure and often tries to avoid the public.

In 2014, lawyers won a landmark court case which gave Sandra similar legal rights to those enjoyed by humans, and better living conditions. And in 2015 Sandra was legally ruled a 'nonhuman person' rather than an animal.

Judge Elena Liberatori said after that ruling: "I wanted to tell society something new, that animals are sentient beings and that the first right they have is our obligation to respect them."

Her release has taken a long time because of disputes about her welfare. Caretakers argued it might be better to improve her cage because sending her abroad or releasing her into the wild could put her life at risk.

Sandra's release seemed nearer in 2016 when the zoo she was kept in closed. But finally, in 2017, Judge Liberatori decided the 33-year-old orangutan should go to the Center for Great Apes – where Bubbles, the late Michael Jackson's chimpanzee, lives.

Her journey was further delayed by applications for US permits.

Officials at the Florida center have sought to make the transfer as easy as possible on Sandra. 

She arrived in Kansas on Friday and will undergo tests before being moved on to the 100-acre sanctuary in Florida where she will join 21 other orangutans.

Her legal victory a few years ago has set a precedent for apes to be deemed, in legal terms, people rather than property. 

Nonhuman rights organisations argue some highly intellectual animals – apes, whales, elephants and dolphins – should be granted similar rights to humans, such as the right not be experimented on, or held in captivity.

The Nonhuman Rights Project, a US based charity, seeks to secure legal 'personhood' and rights for 'nonhuman animals' by changing their legal status in this way. 

The charity says they achieve that through 'habeas corpus' – a legal concept widely used in the 18th and 19th centuries to fight human slavery. It is a way of testing if a person's imprisonment is legal.

They say scientific evidence of nonhuman animals' intelligence and emotional complexity is vital to winning these legal battles.