A man was sentenced to two years in jail in Malaysia on Tuesday after pleading guilty to neglecting his five pet cats. The animals died when he visited his hometown on the other side of the country for several weeks last year, leaving his rented apartment unattended.
Responding to neighbors’ complaints about a foul stench wafting from the apartment, the landlord checked on the unit in the capital Kuala Lumpur on March 11. He discovered a box near the door containing the skeletons of the five cats that had died while his tenant, 31-year-old Lim Chia Lin, was away between June 14 and July 3 last year.
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The landlord told Lim to dispose of the skeletons in the box on March 11, but saw the same container untouched when he revisited the apartment two days later to collect rent, according to the New Straits Times.
When he stepped into the unlocked apartment, he realized that Lim, who was asleep in his room at the time, had been living with dozens more animal skeletons and organs, believed to be those of cats, the Malaysian Animal Association said in a statement on Friday.
The landlord also traced the foul smell to a bucket of unidentified minced meat in the kitchen—suspected to be made from cats as well. Lim later claimed in court that the meat was marinated chicken, The Star reported.
While the landlord lodged a police report on March 13, Lim was only arrested on Saturday after the case was publicized by animal welfare organizations. The report filed by the landlord was initially ignored by police. Despite animal cruelty laws, officers claimed they did not have the authority to investigate the matter, the Malaysian Animal Association statement said.
One of his neighbors, who lives on the same floor, told local news outlet Bernama that Lim was known to be an animal lover who was clean and tidy. However, she said, Lim lost his “chubby figure” over the past couple of months and started to look “messy.”
“I asked him why he looked so thin and he said he was sick and needed to go to the hospital for treatment,” she said. Another neighbor told the outlet that there used to be many stray cats around the condominium but their numbers have recently declined.
Besides the jail sentence, Lim has also been slapped with a fine of 50,000 Malaysian ringgit ($11,300), which could lead to another year in jail if he is unable to pay. Lim, who was legally unrepresented, asked the court for a lighter sentence as he only earned 1,500 ringgit ($340) a month as a salesman.
Deputy public prosecutor Wan Ahmad Hakimi Wan Ahmad Jaafar said that Lim’s jail sentence should serve as a “lesson to the public” to not neglect their pets.
“If he wants to leave them [the cats] for a long time, he should provide food, drinks, and a comfortable place for the cats to live in before he went away, instead of leaving them high and dry, and without the slightest mercy,” he said.
