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A Jerusalem rabbinical court has condemned to death by stoning a stray dog it suspects is the reincarnation of a secular lawyer who insulted the court's judges 20 years ago. Israeli website Ynet says the large dog made its way into the Monetary Affairs Court in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, frightening judges and plaintiffs. Despite attempts to drive the dog out of the court, the hound refused to leave the premises. One of the sitting judges then recalled a curse the court had passed down upon a secular lawyer who had insulted the judges two decades previously. Their preferred divine retribution was for the lawyer's spirit to move into the body of a dog, an animal traditional Judaism considers impure. Still offended, one of the judges sentenced the animal to death by stoning by local children. However, the canine escaped. Animal welfare organisation Let the Animals Live filed a complaint with the police against the head of the court, Rabbi Avraham Dov Levin, who denied that the judges had called for the dog's stoning. But one of the court's managers confirmed the sentence had been made in a story carried by leading Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot.