Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter 

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A 39-year-old man held in con­nec­tion with the be­head­ing of a dog re­mained in po­lice cus­tody up to last evening.

The Pleas­antville man was ar­rest­ed by po­lice on Mon­day fol­low­ing dis­turb­ing videos of a man us­ing a knife to cut off the ears and head of a dog while he sat on the pave­ment along High Street in San Fer­nan­do in broad day­light.

An­oth­er video shows him calm­ly walk­ing along the street hold­ing the dog’s head.

An­i­mal rights ac­tivist Jow­elle De Souza, pres­i­dent of the Give Our An­i­mals Love net­work, com­plained that the po­lice have not been treat­ing with re­ports of cru­el­ty against an­i­mals.

She said new laws had been draft­ed un­der the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture but had not been pro­claimed. She said an­i­mal sanc­tu­ar­ies had been strug­gling with lim­it­ed re­sources.

Ac­cord­ing to the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, any per­son who beats, starves, ill-treats, over­rides, over­loads, abus­es, or oth­er­wise mal­treats any an­i­mal is li­able to a fine of $100,000 and im­pris­on­ment to a term of one year.