Veterinary prof. Lee grilled over alleged animal abuse

By Kim Jae-heun

Mei

Renowned veterinary professor Lee Byeong-chun of Seoul National University (SNU) has been summoned by police for questioning over alleged animal abuse during experiments on a cloned dog.

The Gwanak Police in Seoul said Wednesday that they called Lee in on Monday and grilled him over accusations that he deliberately omitted specific details on research he submitted to the animal testing ethics committee at his school and he abused the dog during a quarantine-related experiment. The animal died in February, about three months after returning from Lee's experiments.

The investigation followed a complaint filed by an animal rights advocate group, the Beagle Rescue Network (BRN), against Lee in April.

The BRN claimed the professor violated the Animal Protection Law that bans experiments on service animals. It also accused Lee of possible animal abuse.

Lee "borrowed" the cloned beagle that had worked at Incheon International Airport for five years as a detection dog searching for illegal products, from the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency in March last year. He conducted quarantine-related tests with the retired dog until November.

However, when the dog returned after the eight months of experiments with Lee, it had lost a significant amount of weight and was suffering from genital problems that made it very hard for him to walk, raising speculations of animal abuse. Tge dog died Feb. 27.

The veterinarian failed to reveal exactly what tests he ran on the animal, and it is alleged that the tests involved the heredity of detection dogs' abilities. He also failed to explain how the retired detection dog came to the lab, because the Animal Protection Law stipulates working dogs are banned from being used in science experiments.

Police searched the veterinary school as well as the animal testing ethics committee's office at SNU last month and seized Lee's research materials.

Following growing controversy, SNU suspended Lee's research and removed him from his director position at the school's Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources.

The university also conducted an internal investigation on the case and revealed that Lee did not receive permission from the school's ethics committee to take the dog from the quarantine agency and some of the tests were not included in the research plan he submitted to the committee.

It admitted that Lee is partly responsible for the death of dog as the professor did not give it proper treatment despite worsening health during the tests.

But the committee said it could not confirm abusive acts on the dog by Lee or other research team members.

Other animal rights groups including the Korean Animal Rights Advocates (KARA) and the Korean Animal Welfare Association, along with the BRN, are urging SNU to fire Lee and permanently scrap Lee's research on animal cloning.