REPORTS THAT A court in Jerusalem had condemned a stray dog to death by stoning have been strongly denied by the court involved.

Earlier this month, Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported that a dog strayed into a Jewish rabbinical court in the ultra Orthodox Mea Shearim neighbourhood in Jerusalem.

The report said the dog reminded a judge of a curse passed on to a now deceased secular lawyer some 20 years ago, and the pooch was condemned to death by stoning. The report was carried widely internationally, including on this website and the BBC.

However, the secretariat of the court has now said it was “bitter humour”, according to The Telegraph and Maariv apologised for its headline and any offence caused.

A court statement said: “There is no basis for stoning dogs or any other animal in the Jewish religion, not since the days of the Temple or Abraham.”

The statement added that the dog entered the court and had been removed appropriately. It said that there was no talk of a lawyer, reincarnation or stoning. The invention of the story was dismissed as “a kind of blood libel” by the court.

No dogs have been harmed in the writing of this article.