A 25-year-old man working as a chef in the Paris suburbs has been accused of killing two dogs and then eating them, Le Parisien reported. The chef also faces charges of animal cruelty and has since been forcibly committed by authorities to the Paul-Guiraud psychiatric hospital in the nearby town of Villejuif.

The arrest came after the caretaker of a block of flats in the town of Krelim-Bicêtre, in the southern suburbs of Paris, made a gruesome discovery in February 2013, when he found the mutilated body of a German Shepherd in a plastic bag. Two weeks later he found the body parts of an eight-month-old Border Collie. 

Two autopsies on the black and white Border Collie confirmed that the dog had been dismembered while still alive and that certain body parts had been removed to be used as meat. 

“The autopsy leaves little doubt as to the reason for the cuts,” Stéphane Lamart, President of the French animal rights association (l'association de défense des animaux éponyme), told Le Parisien on Wednesday, adding that the slaughter had been done “cleanly”.

"Someone who wantonly attacks a dog doesn't do it like that," he said.

Thanks to microchips in the animals police were able to find out the names of the dogs and track down their previous owners. One of the owners confirmed that she had sold the dog to a man over the internet whose contact details turned out to be fake.

It will be up to the doctors at the psychiatric hospital to determine whether the man is mentally fit enough to be tried for the crime.

While the consumption of dog meat is not in itself a crime in France, the slaughtering of animals is strictly regulated.