A man in Siberia elected to kill and eat his horse rather than let the animal fall into the clutches of local bailiffs.
Orlik the stallion was due to be impounded over his owner's debt of about 18,000 rubles ($500), the Novosibirsk region's branch of the bailiffs service said.
But Orlik was nowhere to be found when they came to the man's ranch in the region to collect the steed, the service said on its website.
A hasty investigation established that the debtor had butchered and eaten the horse.
Though the owner — whose name was withheld — later paid off his debt, he still faces up to two years in jail, the report said.
The charges against him are, however, not cruelty to animals, but destruction of arrested property.
Russian animal rights legislation is notoriously lax compared to Western laws. Neither the "doghunters" who target stray dogs nor the man who sent a braying donkey parasailing over the Black Sea in an advertising stint in 2010 faced any legal penalties, despite public outcry.
Russian bailiffs have been known to seize items including sex dolls, dog clothing, felt boots, a tsar bust, Sphynx cat, beehives and a reinforced concrete fence. In Krasnoyarsk, debt dodgers' mugs started appearing on beer coasters in 2013, and later that year, bailiffs ambushed one offender at his own wedding.
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