Prosecutors on Monday asked for the "severest punishment" for a Russian man accused of killing dozens of people and keeping count of them on a chessboard. But the defendant showed no remorse on the final day of his five-week trial, mocking both prosecutors and his own lawyers.
Alexander Pichushkin, 33, has confessed to killing 63 people with the goal of marking all 64 squares on the chessboard. Prosecutors charged him with 49 murders, but later dropped one count for lack of evidence.
Most of the victims were killed over the course of five years in Bittsa Park, a sprawling wild green area on the southern edge of the city, and the serial killer became known as the "Bittsa Maniac."
Moscow city prosecutor Yuri Syomin told the jury in his closing arguments that investigators have proved Pichushkin killed 48 people and attempted to kill three others and he "deserves the severest punishment as a serial killer."
Russia has maintained a moratorium on the death penalty since 1996, although it has stopped short of abolishing it completely.
Pichishkin's lawyers questioned the evidence in 23 of those killings -- in 14 cases no body was found -- and asked that he be cleared on those crimes.
"I would not want him to be blamed for someone else's crimes," lawyer Pavel Ivannikov said.
Pichushkin, who was held in the courtroom in a glass cage, refused to make a final statement.
"A final statement?" he said, speaking through a microphone. "It sounds grim. I donate my final statement to all the deaf and mute."
"All that is being said here by the prosecutors and lawyers is so pitiful," he said, after prosecutors several times had to correct one of his defense lawyers when he confused some facts of the case during his closing arguments.
"I would give him death by firing squad," a woman whose sister was one of the victims said.
Prosecutors said Pichushkin lured his victims to the park by promising them vodka if they would join him in mourning the death of his dog.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
STILL IN POWER: US intelligence reports showed that the Iranian regime is not in danger of collapse and retains control of the public, casting doubt on Trump’s exit Nearly every US Senate Democrat on Wednesday signed a letter sent to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requesting a “swift investigation” of airstrikes on a girls’ school in Iran that killed scores of children and any other potential US military actions causing civilian harm. Reuters reported on Thursday last week that US military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for the Feb. 28 strike on the school, as US and Israeli forces launched attacks on Iran. “The results of this school attack are horrific. The majority of those killed in the strikes were girls between the ages
RSS