“I can’t explain the feeling I had when I saw Babushka again,” Edma Tannous, the dog’s owner, told The Daily Star hours after the bruised Labrador was found in the Sidon village of Zrarieh, after apparently being released by the kidnapper. The torture footage shows the dog being lifted into the air with rope tied to Babushka’s paws. The torturer, a Zrarieh native identified as Mohammad Shakrani, released a malevolent laugh before he began yelling at the frightened pup. Shakrani then takes off his slipper and deals several blows to the canine’s face, which consequently starts squealing and squirming. Shakrani then starts to swing the dog before striking her across the face. She begins to wail frantically when her torturer removes a long wooden rod and pokes her in the mouth. The footage was shot one day after the dog was kidnapped from in front of the house of one of the owner’s relatives. “I couldn’t watch the entire video,” Tannous said. “I could only watch a few seconds and all I could think about was what kind of criminal would do something like this.” Until this point, the owner had not recognized the dog being beaten as her own. Her fiancé, however, said that it was in fact Babushka after pointing out identifying features such as the dog’s ears. The owner said she was devastated and couldn’t imagine the experience that her dog went through during the abuse. Tannous then started an online campaign to track down her dog. Her efforts were received by a non-profit rescue shelter known as Animal Pride and Freedom (APAF). The group started following up on the case Sunday. Several Internet users identified the young man in the video and revealed his place of residence. Soraya Mouawad, the founder and president of APAF’s Lebanon branch, accompanied Tannous to Adlieh on Monday were they filed an official complaint against Shakrani, urging his arrest for kidnapping and torturing the canine. At around 11 a.m., Mouawad received a call from a girl from the village of Zrarieh who claimed that she had spotted a similar dog in the area, the APAF head told The Daily Star. The two then drove to the Sidon village and visited the house of an elderly couple that had sheltered the dog after finding it roaming around the village one day earlier. “Babushka was hiding under the bed and refused to go out for two days,” Tannous said. “But when she heard me yell out her name she scurried out and started jumping on me and licking my face.” Mouawad said that the dog had lost a lot of weight since being kidnapped last week and displayed signs of physical trauma in addition to small wounds to the tail and ears. When asked to deliver a message to the perpetrator, the Tannous said: “How could you torture a dog this way? This is a soul just like us.” The Daily Star
