Stray cats killer sentenced to 8 years without suspension

A 33-year-old man who killed stray cats was sentenced to 8 years in prison without the usual ‘suspension’ of sentence, a common practice in Greece for crimes against animals In addition to his sentence, he was fined 20,000 euros.

The 33-year-old accused of systematically killing cats in Votanikos district of central Athens was sentenced without parole.

The sentence concerns the murders of two animals, although there were complaints against him for having tortured and killed more stray cats as the bodies of another five animals were found inside the shed where he lived.

The man was arrested in February 2023, when a camera recorded his torturous and exterminating action. The images sparked complaints and reactions resulting in a police investigation.  but the amount of evidence provided by animal welfare organizations brought heavy evidence against him so he was ultimately  identified and arrested.

In court, the offender reportedly did not give any answer as to why he was killing or beating hitting the strays. In fact, he claimed at first that he was not the one in the video, while later he recanted and claimed that he only injured the animal and that he and the cat “were chatting”. This angered  the prosecutor, so that no mitigating factor was accepted for him.

While most offenders of crimes against animals, a felony by law in Greece, are sentenced with suspended sentences, the 33-year-old is the second person to be sentenced to prison for torturing or killing an animal.

The first offender was Babis Anagnostopoulos who, in addition to his wife Caroline Crouch, had killed also the couple’s dog in their home in Glyka Nea, east Attica, in May 2021.