RUSSIA:Russia's so-called "chessboard murderer" was sentenced to life in prison yesterday for killing 48 people, after he told a court last week he felt like God as he decided whether his victims should live or die.
Alexander Pichushkin (33) stood with his head bowed inside a glass cage in the courtroom as the judge, Vladimir Usov, read out the sentence. Asked if he understood, Pichushkin, without lifting his head, replied: "I'm not deaf. I understood."
Pichushkin was given his nickname by the Russian media because he told detectives in a confession that he had hoped to put a coin on every square of a 64-square chessboard for each of his victims.
He is Russia's deadliest serial killer since Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted in 1992 and executed for killing more than 50 people. Russia is now observing a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty.
Pichushkin claimed during his trial to have killed 63 people, but prosecutors only charged him with 48 murders and three attempted murders. They are investigating the other cases.
Most of Pichushkin's victims were from the margins of society: homeless people, alcoholics and the elderly.
He would often invite his victims to drink vodka in a park in southern Moscow. When they were drunk he would smash their skulls in and throw their bodies into a swift-moving sewage canal.
Pichushkin said he killed his first victim in 1992, an experience he said was like first love: "You never forget it."
During his own testimony, he said he felt like a God. "I took the most valuable thing, human life," he said.
"I didn't take anything else of value from them. Money, jewellery, I didn't need it. I felt like God. I tried to collect their spirits, their souls. I felt no emotion when I killed them."