Israel: 'We didn't kill the dog,' as court denies ordering stoning of a dog to death

Dogs are not often invited to sit in courtrooms- in the witness stand, or jury box, or bench for that matter. But in this case in an Israeli courtroom a dog made an appearance but reportedly was not tried for any crimes.

The court secretariat has strongly denied reports which claimed that it had passed out orders for stoning a dog to death because the judges believed that it was the reincarnation of a lawyer who had been cursed for insulting Jews.

The secretariat has said that it was 'bitter humour', and all that happened was the local dogcatcher had removed the dog.

"The female dog found a seat in the corner of the court. And the children were delighted by it; there were hundreds outside the court. They are used to seeing stray cats but most have never seen a dog before. The only action we took was to dial the number of the Jerusalem Municipality to get the people in charge to take it away" the statement of the court said.

"There was no talk of reincarnation, a lawyer has never been mentioned, either now or 20 years ago, and there was no stoning" the statement said further.

The rabbinical court had reportedly passed the sentence after a large dog wandered into a court in Mea Shearim neighbourhood of Jerusalem and frightened the judges.