Durban - A KwaZulu-Natal deputy mayor looks set to face criminal charges after a man, believed to be his bodyguard, was filmed shooting a dog with a high-calibre rifle.
Graphic footage of the incident was widely circulated on social media at the weekend.
In the video, a man can be seen opening fire on a dog that has been chained to a fence.
The dog writhes and cries as he continues to shoot it.
A man understood to be the deputy mayor of Mthonjaneni, on the KZN North Coast, Philani Ntombela, can be seen in the background, coaxing the shooter on.
In this screenshot, the dog is seen eventually collapsing from its injuries.
Ntombela was not available for comment on Sunday but on Friday, he confirmed to an online news site that it had been him and his bodyguard in the clip.
He told the website the dog had been “terrorising” the locals and attacking their livestock.
The spokesperson for the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA), Meg Wilson, on Sunday told The Mercury that the Eshowe SPCA was opening a criminal case against the deputy mayor and his bodyguard.
She also said that investigations suggested that this was not the first time the deputy mayor had been behind the shooting of a dog for attacking livestock and that he had shot – or had someone else shoot – his own dogs before.
Ntombela’s party, the IFP, on Sunday expressed an “unwavering condemnation of any form of cruelty to animals”.
But deputy national spokesperson Joshua Mazibuko, said he had not seen the video and so it was “impossible for the IFP to pronounce a precisely well-informed position on the matter”.
More in tomorrow's The Mercury