Autistic Singaporean with antisocial personality wanted to harm cats because they weren't human

ANG MO KIO, SINGAPORE - NEWS AND COMMENT: A 37-year-old Singaporean, Leow Wei Liang, simply wanted to harm community cats. In some respects he hid behind his autism and antisocial personality disorder. But the bottom line is that this man wanted to harm cats because they are not human and were 'just cats'. He harmed them for his own perverse entertainment. He could not use his personality disorders as a defence to being cruel to animals. As a consequence, he was successfully prosecuted and on conviction he was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison.

Photos: Ang Mo Kio South Caregivers and Feeders)

Leow pleaded guilty to 3 counts of animal cruelty and another four charges were taken into consideration. In evidence it was submitted that several community cats were injured over a month in housing estates in Ang Mo Kio. He said that he had bought a penknife with the intention of injuring seven cats.

He said that he is allergic to cat fur and "wanted to have fun since the stray cats were stray animals and not human."

The cats suffered a range of wounds, all serious but none fatal as far as I am aware. Leow was assessed as to his mental health in order to ensure that he could stand trial and plead. The assessment found that his acts of cruelty were not because of a difficulty in comprehending the consequences of his actions but simply because of a desire to inflict pain on animals as a form of entertainment

Comment: the case is interesting partly because this man had mental health issues which may have opened the door to using them as a defence in his prosecution. They might have argued that he did not have the sufficient intent to commit the crimes because of his personality disorders. But the experts found that he was perfectly able to comprehend what he was doing and the consequences thereof and therefore he stood trial and was found guilty.

It seems that the police didn't take that long to find him which indicates to me that the was either very careless in his acts of cruelty or was unconcerned about being arrested and tried.

Here is a Facebook post on the topic which fills in some gaps. Remember that FB posts sometimes stop working over time as they are deleted on FB.