Nairobi - Tanzania's justice department has made legal history after a Primary Court magistrate in Rukwa, Tanzania, sentenced a dog to death by hanging, the regional weekly newspaper The East African reported in Nairobi, Kenya, yesterday.

The dog's owner, John Kachela (25) was sentenced to a six-month suspended jail sentence and his dog, Immigration, sent to the gallows "to hang until it dies", after the court ruled that Kachela was guilty of scandalising the department of immigration.

Stanley Anyitike, the prosecuting immigration officer, told the court that Kachela mischievously gave the name of this "highly respected and law-abiding" government department to his dog and almost every other day went to the immigration department and other public places proudly calling the animal by name.

The mongrel is on death row, with no appeal against conviction or sentence, application for stay of execution or petition to the High Court. The Tanzania Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has appealed to advocates of the court to take up the matter in the name of "kindness to God's creatures".

In a case involving a dog in 1989 some foreigners in Dar-es-Salaam were charged with "allowing their dog to have carnal knowledge of a Tanzanian woman". The owners were deported but the dog was not harmed.

- Sapa-DPA

Webmaster's note:
I am shocked and appalled at this: what form of justice do they practise in Africa?

1. Why should the dog die for a (highly dubious) 'crime' committed by his owner?
2. Why should anyone feel insulted by a dog being named after them or their department?
3. I thought hanging was an outdated form of execution, being one of the more cruel ways to die.
4. In what way does the hanging of the dog prevent or compensate for any offense caused?