Horseman João Moura was sentenced this Wednesday to a suspended prison sentence of four years and eight months, for mistreating nearly two dozen greyhounds, one of which died.
In addition to having to undergo a resocialization plan and training actions, the defendant will have to pay one thousand euros to each of the three associations that collected the animals. As additional penalties, he was prohibited from keeping pet animals until almost the end of 2028 and from participating in fairs and markets for the next three years.
The judge who handed down the sentence used the terms “cruelty” and “inhumanity” to refer to what happened.
It all happened on his farm in Monforte, in the Portalegre district, in 2020. After several greyhounds got loose and ended up on the road, GNR soldiers entered the rider’s property and came across an unimaginable scenario. The images of skeletal greyhounds in deplorable hygienic and sanitary conditions shocked the country.
The Public Ministry’s indictment said, which charged him with 18 crimes of mistreatment, that for at least two months João Moura deprived the animals of access to sufficient water and food, as well as clean housing, any health care and hygiene, vaccination and deworming, keeping them “in a situation of permanent discomfort, thirst, hunger and suffering”.
He closed them in boxes intended for horses, two to five animals per cubicle, “without any equipment for providing food or water” and with “a large accumulation of excrement over many days”. It was on this waste that the greyhounds, infected with internal and external parasites, slept.
In addition to ticks and roundworms, there were also animals with leishmaniasis. One of the females weighed 13 kilos, a “body condition of 2” on a scale of 1 to 9, where 1 means “extreme thinness”.
The veterinary report that was made at the time reported other mistreatment: wounds inflicted, it is not known whether by other animals or by people, dermatitis and abrasions. The tail of a two-year-old female, for example, had a part that was already putrefied. An eight-year-old female died from acute kidney and liver failure. She had deep cuts on one paw, with no signs of healing.
In the last session of the trial, at the Portalegre Court, the knight assumed for the first time “part of the responsibility” for what happened. In a short statement, he claimed that at the time he was going through a “less good” economic phase and apologized for what had happened.
João Moura has been participating in greyhound racing for several years, being a breeder of this breed of dog.