A criminal court in Qatar has handed a man a three-year jail term for lifting a pair of pet leopard cubs from an acquaintance’s home, the Peninsula reports.

The owner of the cubs had been entertaining a group of some 100 people in his majlis, and discovered the animals were missing the next morning, the report states. Police tracked down the thief and another man based on information posted on “a local website.”

Meanwhile, one of the cubs had been sold for QR34,000 through a BlackBerry Messenger posting. 

The report made no mention of prosecution of the man who originally owned the cubs, even though possessing wild animals as pets is illegal under Qatari law. 

Thoughts?

Credit: Photo by Don Burkett