UPDATE: Case of dog thrown from roof

Below is the re-post of the report from ESMA on their progress with the DAs office in Egypt. I am so happy to see this result, it truly is a step forward in the right direction for animal rights in Egypt. In addition to this, the Egyptian Minister of Agriculture has also recently announced that he will implement animal rights legislation in Egypt.

See the full story here.

I have removed some of the names in the report for privacy reasons. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to message me.


The Beginning of “Justice”

On Thursday the 28th of April the following people went to get justice for the dog that got thrown off the roof:

[Names removed for Privacy Reasons]

We entered the “Second 6th of October” police station to file a criminal report against Ahmed Fouad Taye’e and Bahy Sabry Abdelaziz, for torturing a dog and throwing him off a roof.

Suzie Nassar had found the video posted on ESMA’s page by an animal lover who had found it.

We entered the police station at 2:30pm after first meeting up at Hyper 1.

As we walked in we definitely looked odd in that location and people were already staring at us, the first thought that came to our mind was that we were going to get laughed at and taken lightly.

We were met with respect and led to a room where we were going to place the report. A high ranking officer came in, sat at his desk and asked us what the problem was, we told him the story of the dog that was thrown off the roof and introduced Suzie as a founding member of ESMA and a board member, Phaedra Al-Masri as a group member/ supporter /volunteer and acting as translator for Suzie, Ahmed Hesham, a veterinary surgeon, ESMA supporter and also a key witness to the confessions of the boys to the crimes and had gone to the location to meet with them and be shown the roof that the dog had been thrown off, Mahmoud Mounir, corroborative witness who had accompanied Dr. Ahmed Hesham when he met the boys.

We all gave our passports and IDs to the officer who wrote down the nature of the complaint and our personal details and even mentioned that he had met Mona Khalil (ESMA chair person) once before at another police station when she was filing a report against dog poisoning.

We had cds that contained the boys’ admissions and the video of the dog being thrown off the roof.

After he took all the information he walked out of the office and we waited for about half an hour before he walked in again and sent us to the Chief of Police where we gave our statements, first Suzie was asked about the incident, then Ahmed Hesham described his experience with the boys when he met them and how he managed to reach them. We provided the police with the names and addresses of the offenders so that they could be retrieved, we then all signed our statements and expected to be called to the DA’s office the next day as is with most reports.

The Chief of Police surprised us by saying that he had sent for the boys and that we will be heading to the DA’s office in an hour, it was around 4:30pm by then…we were shocked.
The seriousness with which the police officials were taking this matter was unexpected by us at all, as I had mentioned before, we thought that they would take this matter lightly.

As we were walking out we were told that one of the boys had already been retrieved and was in one of the closed offices….we were about to jump for joy!!

We then headed with a police escort to the DA’s office, a 5-minute drive from the police station.

When we arrived, the DA had not arrived yet, it was 5:30pm. By 5:45pm we were introduced to the DA and sitting in his office.

He read the report sent from the police station and we told him the story in detail again. He had his laptop with him so we opened on all the links to all the outraged animal welfare groups and the petition that was being signed. We also showed him the link to our ESMA page on the Facebook and he was shocked by the feedback this awful incident was causing and the damaging of Egypt’s image due to such an act of barbaric cruelty.

He then saw the video, I had to walk out of the room, as I cannot until this day see it or hear it. When I walked back in the room, he looked disgusted and shocked by what he had just seen.

He proceeded to call his superior, he realized that this was not just a case of animal cruelty, but one that was widely publicized abroad, the phone call lasted for not less than half an hour, with the DA spelling out the links of the pages I had shown him on the internet to his superior who was checking them too, he confirmed what we were saying by assuring his superior that he had seen the videos himself.

His superior asked him and in turn he asked Susie whether she had another nationality and she said as I had said at the police station that she had an Egyptian nationality due to marriage to an Egyptian national, he then asked on behalf of his superior (who was still on the phone with him) why she was filing the report with her British passport instead of her Egyptian one and I told him that the chief of police was aware, told and had written down that she had both and did not have a preference as to which she used, and that we thought nothing of it, his superior then asked him for her husband’s name, occupation and address, all were given. He then hung up with his superior.

The DA was so shocked by the video, he even asked Ahmed Hesham and Mahmoud Mounir whether the boys seemed sane or not when they met them and they told him that they were perfectly sane, just indifferent boys with a complete disregard and disrespect for life and mercy.

Our lawyer went on to dictate to the DA article 357 of the Egyptian penal code that states that any premeditated harm or murder or poisoning of a pet is punishable by no more than 6 months in jail and a fine that does not exceed 200 Egyptian pounds. This is an unfamiliar article to most and so the lawyer had brought with him the book of Egyptian penal codes.

It was 7pm by then.

The DA asked us to leave the room and we were escorted to another room where we sat chatting for the first hour, confused for the second hour and quite anxious for the third, no one was telling us anything. The lawyer reassured us that the DA was finishing small cases and getting them out of the way so that he could make time for us, and that he was sure that the matter was snowballing, sure enough, the DA’s secretary walked in to get something from the room we were in and I asked him what was going on, he said that the problem had blown out of proportions and gone all the way up to the Attorney General, who had called a few times.

By 10:30 we were letting our imagination run wild…so many what ifs!!! What if they arrest us?! Why did they ask us so many questions that we felt were unrelated to the case?!!

The DA opened the door and apologized for the delay and said it won’t be long, by then Susie had walked out and came back saying that she suspected that the boys and their parents were there, Nouran walked out and came back and said that there was nothing sinister in regards to us and that she also thinks the boy is there, our lawyer had walked out and said he saw the lawyer of one of the boys in the corridor and overheard him speaking about the “dog issue”.

It was late and Ahmed Hesham needed to leave because he had cases at his clinic, we asked the DA who was standing at our door whether or not the doctor can leave and he said, that he could and that if he needed anything they would call him and ask him to come back. Ahmed Hesham, Mahmoud Mounir and Nouran left, but the DA said that Susie and I were still needed. Colin also stayed…and of course our lawyer.

By 10:45 we were back in the DA’s office and the formal questioning began, he asked Susie and I for our religions so that we could take the oath before testimony, we both stated that we were Muslim and raised our right hand and swore to tell the truth, I swore that I would translate with honesty and good faith.

The questions and answers were all about the incident, we answered thoroughly, stating every single detail, how we found the video, how we got the numbers of the boy “Ameen” who had originally uploaded the video, the day we discovered the video (April 23rd 2011), the day that Ahmed Hesham went to meet “Ameen” the uploaded (April 24th 2011) who led him to the other two. He asked us why Ameen agreed to do that, we told him that he had gotten so many negative comments on his Facebook profile from all over the world that he was ready to hand in the offenders in exchange for protection and that he himself was willing to testify, and that he wanted us to tell the world that he had nothing to do with it.

We left nothing out, we told him of the other two dogs that we had found detained in the boys’ house and how we sent a car with my drivers and Mahmoud Mounir in it to pick up the dogs after Ahmed Hesham had left and called us to tell us that the boys still had other dogs. We told him how one dog ran when the door was opened and how the other could not due to a break in it’s leg and that when we x-rayed the dog we found an older break in it’s hip as well indicating without a doubt that it was thrown more than once from the first floor of the building.

When he asked how she was personally harmed by this incident, she went on to say that we had just started baby steps in improving Egypt’s image in front of the world and on our way to truly improving the state of animal welfare in Egypt after the peaceful protest we organized in front of the Giza Zoo that ended with an invitation from the minister of agriculture to meet with him, and we did the very same day of the protest along with other Animal Rights Organizations in Egypt and that this crime had set us back in a major way internationally due to the widespread of the video all over the internet allowing the entire world to see the atrocities committed against animals in Egypt, not helping the already negative image that had been so prominent in the eyes of the world.

She stated that this had done her harm on both the professional and personal level, that she had suffered tremendously on an emotional level and was traumatized by the incident, as were all the animal lovers of the world.

Susie finished by saying that this cannot go unpunished.

Our lawyer ended the deposition by saying that we demand the application of the law to its full extent.

Then we signed the depositions, exchanged emails with the DA who was polite throughout the questioning, understanding of our position and sincerely promising to not let this matter go unpunished.

He told us that we are now released from the building and that one of the boys was already outside and that his questioning will start straight after we leave. When we asked about the other boy he said that he was on the way. We also asked what would happen after the questioning and he answered by saying that they will wrap up the investigation tonight and wait for the decision of the Attorney general in regards to the legal proceedings of detaining minors.

True enough, as we were leaving the building we saw one of the boys in the corridor seated with two men (it was the boy Bahy who had filmed the crime), he was wearing a baseball hat and looked at the floor as we left.

We had to stop Susie from attacking him.

It was 12:45am when we left.

Latest news today 29/4/11 at 11:49pm.

The boy Bahy Sabry Abdelaziz (the boy who shot the horrendous video) was questioned right after we left, he was handcuffed and sent back to the police station and has been detained until now.

The other boy Ahmed Taye’e (the one who killed the dog) is in hiding and the police are looking for him.
Bahy will appear tomorrow in front of the DA again tomorrow and they will determine whether or not he will be detained for another four days or not.

In all cases, he has now been officially accused and the papers and transcripts will be sent to court to decide on the date of the first hearing.

We have a case!!!

Tomorrow our lawyer is getting the copies of the transcripts from the DA’s office with the official serial numbers, will post as soon as I get them.

This is it for now folks.