DOJ Drops Sham Tseng Animal Cruelty Case

The Department of Justice has come under fire after it decided not to prosecute two men over a case in which more than a dozen animals were believed to have been thrown from a building in Sham Tseng earlier this year.

The department said it made the decision after considering all the evidence in the case.

An animal rights advocate expressed shock and disappointment.

The duo were arrested in February after more than a dozen pets – including rabbits, a guinea pig and a cat – were found dead on a slope near the Hong Kong Garden housing estate. Another ten animals were found severely injured in the area.

"The case is quite, at least to us, very obvious that, you know, someone has committed a crime and even two suspects have turned themselves in," Mark Mak, executive director of the Non-Profit making Veterinary Services Society, told RTHK's Richard Pyne.

"All the evidence, environmental evidence, seems quite enough to do the prosecution but, you know, finally they dropped the case. To us it's very shocking and disappointing."

Mak called for tougher animal-cruelty laws, which currently say a case should be prosecuted within six months.

"The animal abuse cases, sometimes it's a very severe and serious crime that cannot be conducted under the summary offence. It has to be an indictment to be heard in the higher courts and shouldn't have any time bar."

Mak added, "Hong Kong people don't want to see such cruelty case happening in Hong Kong."