A Spanish neo-Nazi activist was mauled by a pack of lions after jumping into their enclosure at Barcelona Zoo this week.

Justo José Mira Payá, a former police-officer-turned-right-wing-extremist, was leapt on by one of the animals and pushed into a pit, where he was bitten and dragged along the ground. He remains in intensive care.

Photographers were on the scene and took shots of Payá as he entered the enclosure wearing a military uniform.

Payá appeared in the news in September when he set fire to a Catalan flag in front of TV crews. Last month, he was arrested after draping banners emblazoned with swastikas over the Casa Mila building in an anti-abortion protest.

He has told Spanish newspapers that he was a survivalist, claiming he slept in the countryside most nights with just a poncho to cover his face.