A dog trafficker in Valencia could get more than 13 years in prison.

VALENCIA - A man from Valencia is to appear in court in a few days time because of his mistreatment that caused suffering to twelve dogs, resulting in the death of one of them. Should the judge find it proven that this man abused the dogs, he could get thirteen years and six months in prison.

The police found twelve dogs in a house Quart street in Valencia, in June 2016; they all had bites, bacterial infections, crusted and matted coats and were in poor health. The owner has a history of animal abuse and was arrested at that time for animal abuse.

The judge will assess the ill-treatment of twelve dogs and the death of one of them by poisoning and possibly send the man to prison for thirteen years and six months, at the request of the public prosecutor. The trial should actually have started on Monday but the suspect did not feel well and as a result the session was suspended.

In 2015, the same man was sentenced to three months and a day in prison by another judge, but the sentence was later suspended. Now it turns out that the man has once again abused twelve dogs and so the punishment will probably not be so mild.

The question, of course, is whether the man will actually see the inside of a cell. Until now, only one person in Spain has ever been sent to prison for animal abuse. This happened in Extremadura where a man was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for the ill-treatment of dozens of donkeys and horses.

Written by Remco Stoffer on behalf of SpainSites.nl.