Theo van Gogh. Kitten killer?

The British newspaper The Telegraph asserts in its Sunday edition that:

A shrill provocateur, [murdered Dutch film-maker] Mr van Gogh was not to everybody's taste. He once filmed kittens being mangled to death in a washing machine, which he thought was hilarious.

Hard to believe given that animal cruelty laws in most Western countries would have resulted in van Gogh's arrest for such an act, not to mention the unbounded barbarity of it.

After a little searching, I've come up with this, from the Nov. 24th, 2004 edition of Salon Magazine:

He collected $30,000 from friends and family and started filming. "Lüger," a thriller about a mentally disabled millionaire's daughter who's kidnapped by a greasy psychopath, was screened at the Dutch Film Festival in 1981 and caused an instant riot. The cause of all this commotion was two scenes, one... that shows two kittens spinning in a washing machine. The latter scene was faked, but editing techniques didn't stop van Gogh's opponents from criticizing him.

Is the Telegraph aware of this? Do they dispute it?

Recasting victim as a villain is propaganda 101.