A cat named Lee has returned to Belgium after having been sent to Peru to quarantine for possibly having rabies.
Lee was much discussed in Belgium after 23-year-old Selena Ali took him from Peru to Belgium illegally. The cat risked euthanasia for not being certified to be free of rabies, prompting Ali to put Lee in hiding. The cat was flown back to Peru at the end of June to quarantine there after Ali launched a petition that prompted a back-and-forth with Belgium’s Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (AFSCA).
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Lee was initially set to return to Belgium in August, according to VRT NWS, but while the cat was vaccinated for rabies, it had not in fact been quarantined for three months, with AFSCA demanding a new vaccination and to go through the waiting period again, according to her lawyer, Anthony Godfroid.
Lee landed at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, Het Nieuwsblad reports, which proved difficult as “all of a sudden you couldn’t import any more animals because of the measures,” said Godfroid.
After getting around those measures, “Lee is back home with Selena," Godfroid said, calling it "symbolically beautiful" that lee came home just before Christmas.
Jason Spinks
The Brussels Times
