KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian court handed a jail term of 34 months and a fine to a man who killed a cat by stuffing it into the dryer of a launderette, state news agency Bernama said, the first such conviction under a new animal welfare law.

In Tuesday’s judgment, which the court stayed pending appeal, K. Ganesh, 42, was ordered to pay a fine of 40,000 ringgit ($9,700) for his crime, captured in a closed-circuit television clip that went viral on social media last year.

The grainy video showed a man hold open the dryer door as another pushed the cat in, before they turned on the machine and left.

"I hope this sentence will serve as a lesson to the accused and the public to not be cruel to animals," the agency quoted here the judge, Rasyihah Ghazali, as saying.

Reuters could not immediately contact Ganesh or his lawyer to seek comment. Media said the lawyer, S. Muthuveeran, had sought a minimal sentence as it was Ganesh’s first offense and he was poor.

It was not immediately clear why the men put the cat into the dryer or what had happened to the other man in the video.