Butcher ‘admits knifing cat in supermarket’

A SUPERMARKET butcher who knifed a kitten in full view of his customers could appear in court charged with cruelty.

Police say the 27-year-old man from Astromeritis admitted his guilt under questioning.

The incident happened in the recently opened Nicosia branch of Orphanides supermarket.

Shoppers spotted the cat sniffing around between the butchery and the self-service department. Eyewitnesses said it looked hungry and in search of food.

According to Vasso Samami, personnel director of Orphanides, the kitten was wild: "It jumped on the butcher. The cat was caught up in a wire and our employee was trying to free it. It was an accident. It was completely unintentional."

Sources close to an eyewitness, however, claim the butcher put a knife to the kitten’s throat.

The cat was immediately taken to the vet to be operated on.

Pavlos Economides, the director of the veterinary department who oversaw the kitten’s treatment, told the Cyprus Mail: "the condition of the cat was serious. I have passed the matter on to the police. They must press charges against this fellow."

A representative from Orphanides said the stray kitten had recovered and been released, but Economides said he did not know what had happened to the cat, but other reports say it died.

Under Cypriot law it is illegal to harm or kill domestic animals intentionally. If charged and found guilty, the butcher could serve a short prison sentence.

Antonitsa Damianon, the police officer handling the case, said that in the normal way the file would be sent to the Attorney-general=s office, which will decide whether to press charges.

But the police did not follow routine procedure earlier, failing to issue a formal statement that they were investigating the case.

Spyros Zonafos, a teacher who heard about the incident from friends who witnessed the incident on Friday, March 24, wrote to the national papers to highlight the cruelty. None of his letters was published.

"The newspapers here are afraid. Afraid of the government, afraid of business," he said.

While the supermarket stresses the kitten=s injury was an accident, it also says the butcher has been dismissed.

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.