A South Korean man has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for killing 76 cats in one of the country's most horrific cases of animal violence.

According to the Changwon Court in southeastern South Korea, the man, who is in his twenties, was convicted of violating the animal protection law.

The man was convicted of killing the cats between December 2022 and September 2023 because of a deep hatred for the animal, which he began harboring after other cats scratched his car.

According to the Associated Press, the court order stated that he caught stray cats and adopted others from websites before strangling some of them to death and killing others with scissors.

The court said that he killed a cat by running it over with a car, and the court ruled that a prison sentence was inevitable for the accused because he repeatedly committed “unspeakably cruel” crimes in a deliberate manner.

She stressed that the sentence still reflects the fact that the man had no criminal records and had repented for his crimes, adding that it was found that an unspecified mental health condition was the motive behind his crimes.