Ayoub Ben Nesnes, a 26-year-old Moroccan YouTuber, is being held in pre-trial detention after he skinned, cooked, and ate a stray dog in a video filmed during Eid al-Adha. He presented the animal as an alternative to the traditional sheep sacrifice, which he said had become too expensive. Prosecutors in Temara, near Rabat, ordered him held at El Arjat 1 prison ahead of his trial.
In the video, Ben Nesnes said he had given up the customary Eid sacrifice because of soaring sheep prices. He presented a stray dog as a substitute, then filmed himself preparing and cooking it. The footage was viewed more than 200,000 times before it was removed from YouTube, according to Dexerto on 18 June 2026.
He was arrested on Thursday 4 June in the Diza district of Martil, in the M’diq-Fnideq prefecture, then transferred to Temara, his hometown. The arrest was carried out under a judicial warrant, Mohamed Amziane, president of the Al Rahma Association for the Care of Stray Dogs in M’diq, told Yabiladi.
Three animal-welfare groups — Al Rahma in M’diq, Al Amal in Tétouan, and Mizan Al Rahma Wal Adala in the same city — had filed complaints. Prosecutors brought several charges: insulting the Islamic religion, killing and dismembering an animal, and threatening to commit a misdemeanor and a felony, Amziane told Yabiladi.
Ben Nesnes claims more than two million followers. He built his audience on challenges filmed in forests and remote areas. Several of his videos had already drawn controversy: he is shown eating insects, a rat, and a scorpion, and having himself buried alive. He also said he had eaten chickens supposedly used in witchcraft rituals near shrines.
The preacher Hamza al-Khalidi said that eating dog meat is forbidden under Islamic law, according to Dexerto.
After the backlash, Ben Nesnes posted a second video denying that he had killed the animal. “The dog that appeared in the video — I didn’t kill it. I found it dead on the side of the road after it was hit in a traffic accident,” he said, according to Dexerto on 18 June 2026. “I didn’t kill it, so stop saying that I did. Everything is documented, and there’s proof.”
