A misdemeanor court in Cairo’s Zeitoun district on Wednesday sentenced two defendants, a former police officer and a lawyer, to two months in jail after convicting them of deliberately poisoning a number of sterilized street dogs in the Saraya El-Qobba area of Cairo, rights lawyer Sameh Samir told Al Manassa.
The court set bail at 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($21) for each defendant pending an appeal.
The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), acting as legal representative for the Our Team animal protection association, which had been caring for the dogs, filed a police report against the two men. The report said the defendants intentionally put out poisoned food, causing the dogs to die immediately, an account the association also presented in the case file reviewed by the Zeitoun misdemeanor prosecution, which referred the case to trial.
The association said in court papers it had spent significant effort caring for the dogs, including vaccination, sterilization and medical treatment, but that the defendants killed them just days after the care procedures were completed, according to a statement by ECESR.
Samir said the incident was not random, but followed repeated threats against volunteers who were feeding and vaccinating street dogs in the area. He said the two defendants explicitly warned they would kill the dogs if the volunteers kept feeding them, and that several complaints had previously been filed against them without effect.
“The massacre resulted in the deaths of more than 30 dogs after the two defendants fed them poisoned chicken legs,” Samir said, adding that police investigations and reviews of surveillance footage in the area showed the defendants’ involvement. The videos, he said, captured the act in detail, strengthening the prosecution’s case.
Samir said he provided the public prosecution with official documents showing the association was licensed as an animal welfare organization, along with medical receipts proving the dogs were regularly cared for. He said the dogs that died were part of a “sterilization and vaccination” campaign that covered 130 dogs a month before the incident, describing it as a costly, demanding effort aimed at controlling street-dog numbers in a humane, scientific way, “but the defendants wiped out that work in moments.”
The ruling is not the first of its kind in cases involving deliberate poisoning of street dogs. A 6th of October misdemeanor court in September last year issued a verdict in absentia sentencing a defendant to six months in jail with labor, and setting bail at 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($213) to suspend enforcement pending an objection hearing, after convicting her of poisoning a group of dogs inside Degla Palm compound in New 6th of October City.
That case drew widespread attention in May last year when videos circulated showing poisoned dogs lying in blood on the compound’s streets, prompting calls for the Interior Ministry and the public prosecution to investigate, arrest those responsible, and stop the torture and killing of dogs in the streets.
Against that backdrop, animal-rights activists called at the time for tougher penalties under Egypt’s Penal Code for poisoning or killing animals, and urged the government to issue a comprehensive law governing the treatment of animals.
