SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean man has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for killing 76 cats in one of the country’s most gruesome cases of animal cruelty in recent years.

The man, who is in his 20s, was convicted of violating South Korea’s animal protection law last week, the Changwon District Court in southeastern South Korea said Tuesday. The court did not identify the man.

The man went on a cat-killing spree between December 2022 and September 2023 due to a deep hatred of the animal that he began harboring after other cats scratched his car, according to a court verdict seen by The Associated Press.

He had caught stray cats and adopted others from online sites before strangling some to death and killing others with scissors, the court order said. He killed one cat by running it over with a car, the court said.

The court ruled that the prison sentence was unavoidable because he repeatedly committed “indescribably cruel” crimes in a premeditated manner.