KUALA LUMPUR, June 14 — A man whose act of strangling a cat and then hanging the animal to death went viral on social media, was sentenced to 15 months in prison by the Sessions Court here today.

Twenty-eight-year-old Al Azri Norhisham’s cruelty was caught on his neighbour’s closed-circuit television camera.

The food stall worker was accused of strangling the male cat named Jebon with a raffia string and then hanging the cat to death from a staircase in front of his neighbour’s home at an apartment block in Wangsa Maju, Setapak on June 10 at about 1.30pm.

Jebon was owned by a resident who lived in the area.

Judge Rohatul Akmar Abdullah meted out the sentence which takes effect today, after Al Azri pleaded guilty to a charge of causing pain or suffering under the Animal Welfare Act 2015 which carries a maximum sentence of a RM100,000 fine or three years of jail or both.

Deputy public prosecutor Siti Hajar Mohd Ashif requested the court for a strict sentence in view of the immense cruelty committed by the accused against a defenceless animal and submitted that his mitigation about being scratched and bitten by the cat was unacceptable.

Al Azri was unrepresented. — Bernama