14-Month Prison Sentence for Young Man Who Killed 76 Cats in South Korea

In one of the most severe cases of animal cruelty in the country in years, a young man from South Korea was sentenced to 14 months in prison for killing 76 cats. The man, in his twenties, was convicted last week of violating South Korea's Animal Protection Act, according to the Changwon District Court. The court did not disclose the man's identity. He killed the cats between December 2022 and September 2023 out of a deep-seated hatred for animals after other cats began scratching his car, according to the court's ruling. He caught stray cats and adopted others from websites before strangling them to death, killing others with scissors, and even ran over a cat with his car, according to the court. The court imposed a harsher sentence because he repeatedly committed "crimes of unspeakable brutality." It confirmed that the sentence took into account that the man had no criminal record and showed remorse for his crimes, adding that the man's unspecified mental state was a factor in committing the offenses.