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A 30-year-old man from Singapore, who was formerly working at Sengkang General Hospital as a nurse, has been accused of strangling a kitten to death in Bali.

Details of the suspected case of animal cruelty was shared on social media on June 15 by Utama Villa Tulamben, a resort in Bali, which the man stayed at.

According to the post, the incident took place on June 5.

The resort provided the full name of the accused, as well as his occupation, and added that the incident has been reported to the Bali police.

What happened

According to the details shared by the resort, the man was caught on surveillance camera outside the resort office numerous times after 12am on Monday.

Videos and screenshots of the events were also shared online.

In video footage, a man could be seen prying the office window open and using a torchlight to shine into its interior.

The resort claimed the man was the accused and he was seen performing these actions a number of times between 12am and 2am.

He did not manage to retrieve anything from the office, despite looking as if he was trying to find something.

Kitten taken later that morning

At 10am, the resort said its six-week-old kitten, named Monkey, was left inside the office to sleep.

The office was apparently locked.

It was at 10:30am that the accused managed to take the kitten from the locked office via the window, which he apparently pried open.

The accused was also allegedly caught on camera holding the ginger-white kitten in the compound.

The kitten was subsequently not seen on any of the 12 surveillance cameras located all over the property.

Some 7 minutes later, at 10:37am, the man allegedly left his room to meet his girlfriend, a woman.

They then returned to their room at 10:42am.

A minute later, at 10:43am, a yellow Prime supermarket plastic bag was seen being tossed out of the man's washroom in the property, which is said to be a bungalow villa.

The bag landed on the lawn of a neighbouring property after it was thrown out.

The bag that was thrown out was caught on the neighbouring property's surveillance camera.

By 12:30pm, the resort staff discovered that the kitten was missing.

A search was conducted for the animal.

Kitten found next day

But it was only at 8:10am on June 6 the next day that the kitten was found dead on the lawn.

It had a cable tie around its neck and was in a yellow Prime supermarket plastic bag.

Prime is a chain of supermarkets in Singapore.

Police report made: Resort

According to a written complaint by the resort recounting the incident and likely addressed to the authorities in Singapore, a police report has been lodged in Bali.

A police report number was provided by the resort as proof.

The Bali authorities are investigating the case, the resort claimed, and are looking into the allegations of breaking and entering, theft, and animal cruelty.

Guest confronted by staff

The resort also claimed that its staff had confronted the guest, and he initially denied taking the kitten.

However, after he was allegedly sent a screen grab of him holding the kitten, he admitted to taking the cat from the office, but claimed that the animal ran away.

Even though he further claimed that he went to search for the kitten after it ran away, these actions were not captured on the 12 surveillance cameras in the property, the resort countered.

The statement further added that the man did not have negative interactions with the kitten prior to this incident, as the kitten resided in the office under staff supervision.

The man had also previously expressed satisfaction with the resort's service, it was added.

The resort also made the qualification that it did not catch the guest in the act of killing the kitten, but it wanted to make the relevant evidence public to allow others to judge for themselves.

The resort said: "We are aware that we do not have actual footage of him killing the kitten as the privacy of our guests are of the utmost importance to us. Nevertheless, our CCTVs cameras did record moments of suspicion and we urge you to review the CCTV footage to draw your own conclusions."

Man left earlier than scheduled

In response to Mothership's queries, the resort said the man left the villa at 11am on June 5.

This was shortly after he had allegedly committed the killing and a day before the kitten was discovered dead.

He was in Bali to dive, the resort added.

The initial plan of the group he was with was to spend one night in Kuta, a beach and resort area in the south of the island of Bali in a hotel, before leaving the next day.

But he and his girlfriend were on a 3:30pm flight out of Bali on June 6 back to Singapore earlier than scheduled, the resort claimed, adding that it has the suspect's flight details.

When the man and his companion left, "they were on a different flight than the rest of the group", the resort added.

"The people in the group he came diving with -- not his friends, nobody knew him -- went to confront him in the hotel at 8:20am when we let them know we found Monkey the kitten, but the couple apparently already checked out earlier -- not as planned," the resort said.

Sengkang General Hospital responds to post

Barely three hours after the resort went public with its Facebook post, Sengkang General Hospital responded to it at 11:59pm on June 15.

The hospital clarified that the accused was no longer under its employment the last three years.

SKH wrote: "We are sorry to hear of this incident and would like to clarify that the nurse mentioned is no longer employed at SKH since February 2020. We have also informed the Singapore Nursing Board regarding this inaccurate information. The records have since been corrected."

This is a developing story.

All photos via Utama Villa Tulamben