Man charged with killing dog as police clamp down on animal abuse

Police are clamping down on perpetrators of animal abuse, according to police spokesman Andreas Angelides, who said on Sunday that a 65-year-old man was charged with killing a dog in Limassol.

The incident was reported to police on Satuday by a citizen, who found the injured dog under a car, while a man was standing nearby holding a hunting rifle.

The man, who appeared to have shot the dog, owned up to it but asked the citizen not to report him.

The dog died a few minutes later.

“Police are very sensitive when it comes to issues related to animal abuse and are in constant collaboration with animal welfare organisations,” Angelides told the Cyprus News Agency on Sunday.

He urged people to report incidents of animal abuse to the police, noting at the same time the responsibility of the owners as regards the welfare of their pets.

Angelides said that in 2013 police investigated forty-six cases related to violations of the law on the protection and welfare of animals.

Twenty-five cases were investigated in 2014, forty-two cases in 2015 and eighteen cases in the first nine months of 2016, he added.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.