International Animal Rescue Scandal: Charity donors horrified donations used to pay for dogs to be deliberately tortured.
International Animal Rescue Scandal: Charity donors horrified donations may have been used to pay for dogs to be deliberately tortured.
In a sworn affidavit charity head Marc Ching paid to have dogs tortured.
Translation of sworn statement made by butcher in Indonesia:
1. I run a butcher business at Tomohon market. It has been a family business for three generations and I have worked at the market since I was 12. We sell dog meat, wild pork, bats, snakes, rats – almost every kind of meat. I run the business with my brother and we have about six employees.
2. The way we normally we kill is a dog is to take it from its cage with a stick and rope and then hit it on the head to kill it. We then put it on the ground to make sure it is really dead. After that, we burn off the fur. The dog is not restrained in any way when the fur is burned off because there is no need when the dog is already dead. We kill dogs in the quickest and easiest way possible because we have to kill a lot of dogs every day for customers, especially on busy days. We do not waste time killing them slowly or torturing them. It would be bad business and there would be a risk of the dog biting or scratching you.
3: On April 16th 2016, a foreigner I now know to be Marc Ching came in with a translator and asked me about the price of the dogs. I told him we sell by the kilo. Speaking through his translator, he asked to buy three dogs and said he wanted them to be killed in particular ways while he filmed it. He said he wanted different people to kill the dogs in the different videos. He asked for one dog to be taken out of the park and burned alive. At first I refused and told him we do not kill dogs that way. But then he negotiated and offered a good price and said we could keep the dogs to sell on our stall afterwards so we agreed to do it.
4. We killed dog in the market the usual way while he filmed it. Then he gave instructions through his translator for the second dog to be killed on a piece of park just outside the market. We did what he told us to do and hanged the dog and then burned it alive while he filmed, although I did hit the dog over the head twice before it was hanged to stun it. In the video, I give a thumbs-up sign to Ching to check if he is happy that we are killing the dog the way he wants us to.
5. I have never killed a dog in this way before or since and no butcher in Tomohon would kill a dog this way normally. We did it because he was paying a good price and it was good business.
6. After the second dog was killed, Marc Ching told me he wanted to have another dog killed but wanted to kill it somewhere else. I had run out of dogs by then so I bought one from another trader and suggested that we kill it at my house. Marc Ching asked for the dog to be burned in its cage so we did that while he filmed it. We used a blow-torch and burned the dog to frighten it but not to kill it. Then I hanged the dog from a rafter in the yard outside my house while Marc Ching filmed it. Everything was done on instructions from Marc Ching delivered through his translator. The translator was just translating what Marc Ching said to me. Marc Ching showed no expression while the dog was killed. He was just calm and filmed everything.
7: Marc Ching did not give me any explanation for what he asked us to do. He just said he wanted to film the dogs being killed. I have not spoken or had any contact from him or from his translator since although I have seen the guide at the market on a few occasions with other foreigners, working as a tourist guide.
8: On June 2nd 2018, I was interviewed by a journalist from the Mail on Sunday in London at Tomohon market about the events of April 16th 2016. I gave a truthful account of what happened that day and was not paid for the interview.