A double murderer dubbed ‘Cat-Man’ who meowed throughout his trial has been jailed for life for killing his mother and aunt in what the judge called “merciless murders”.

Nicolas Gil Pereg, 40, who was reportedly removed from the Argentine courtroom last week for ‘meowing’ over 50 times during the hearing, was sentenced for killing his mother and aunt.

The Israeli national, who once changed his name to ‘Floda Reltih’, Adolf Hitler spelled backwards, killed his mum Pyrhia Saroussy, 63, and aunt Lily Pereg, 54, in January 2019.

The former soldier then buried their bodies about four feet underground at his home in Guaymallen in the Argentine province of Mendoza where he kept 37 cats and four dogs.

The victims had travelled from Israel to visit him in Argentina and disappeared shortly after arriving in Mendoza in January 2019.

Pereg reported the pair as missing and told the authorities that they had crossed the border into Chile.

However, the victims’ bodies were found after a two-week search.

Autopsies revealed that Pereg had beaten his mother to death and shot his aunt with a gun.

The defence team relied on the expertise of psychologists and psychiatrists to argue that Pereg suffers from paraphrenia, a mental disorder characterised by paranoid delusions, and should be declared innocent.

During the trial, the defence also said that Pereg suffers from lycanthropy, which makes sufferers believe they are an animal, and last week he had to be removed from court for continually making cat noises.

The jury unanimously declared him guilty for both homicides and the judge said Pereg committed “merciless murder” with “full awareness of the criminality of his acts” before sentencing him to life in prison.