An operator of a dog breeding farm who cut open live mother dogs to remove their puppies and illegally euthanized sick dogs was sentenced to prison and taken into custody in the courtroom in a first-instance ruling.
On the 15th, Judge Seo Jin-won of the Suwon District Court's Criminal Division 10 sentenced A, the former head of the breeding farm, to one year and six months in prison and a fine of 3 million won on charges of violating the Animal Protection Act, the Veterinarians Act and the Building Act. B, an operator indicted alongside A, received one year and two months in prison. The court took both into custody in the courtroom, citing a risk of flight. Among the remaining defendants, C, an operator, received one year in prison suspended for three years, while employees D and E each received eight months in prison suspended for two years, along with orders of 120 to 200 hours of community service.
The defendants were indicted without detention on charges that, while operating the dog breeding farm in Hwaseong from May 2022 to August 2023, they cut open live mother dogs without a veterinary license to remove their puppies, causing the dogs to die. They also faced charges of killing 15 old dogs infected with contagious disease by injecting them with muscle relaxants, and of administering vaccines and antibiotics without a license.
At the time, the number of dogs bred at the farm reached 1,400, but the management staff was found to be severely insufficient, and when authorities first responded to the initial report, 92 dog carcasses wrapped in newspaper were found in a freezer.
The defense denied the charges during the trial, arguing that the mother dogs were already dead, or that even if they were alive, the acts constituted an emergency measure to save the puppies. However, Judge Seo did not accept this argument, based on the disease diagnosis results from the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency.
Citing the observation of bleeding and inflammatory cells in the skin tissue at the incision sites, the judge concluded that the mother dogs were alive at the time of the abdominal incisions. He stated that even if there had been an intent to save the puppies, cutting open their bellies on the spot without appropriate measures such as transfer to an animal hospital is not permissible under generally accepted social norms.
The charge of illegally euthanizing old and sick dogs by injecting muscle relaxants was also found to have been carried out under the operators' instructions and judged guilty. The judge held that companion dogs cannot be regarded as livestock subject to self-treatment by livestock farms, so unlicensed vaccine administration could not be justified either.
In explaining the sentencing, Judge Seo pointed out that the conduct of arbitrarily taking the lives of animals for economic gain carried a high degree of illegality and culpability, but said he took into account that the defendants admitted some of the charges, that the employees participated passively under instructions, and that they had no prior criminal record.
