'Chessboard killer' revels in murders

Russian chessboard killer Alexander Pichushkin gave a chilling insight into his twisted mind today when he told a court his power of life and death made him "almost God".

Pichushkin wanted to kill one person for each of the 64 squares on a chessboard. He was convicted yesterday of 48 murders but angrily insisted his real total was 60.

Most of the victims were killed in southern Moscow's sprawling Bittsa Park from 2001 until his arrest last year.

Today he mocked the efforts to bring him to justice, from the investigation carried out by "blockheads" to the five-week trial.

"A huge number of people have been trying to decide my fate. Meanwhile, I alone decided the fate of 60 people," he said in a final statement from the reinforced glass defendants' cage.

"I was prosecutor, judge and executioner. I decided who was to live and who was to die. I was almost God," he said.

Judge Vladimir Usov told him: "There is a difference: You acted illegally."

Pichushkin said: "I did not break any laws. I was above them."

He told the judge he never robbed his victims, but took "only the most precious thing": their lives.

"I'm interested exclusively in human life. Because life is the most valuable thing," he said.

He will be sentenced on Monday. Russia has suspended but not abolished capital punishment.

Prosecutors have called for him to be given life in prison, with the first 15 years in solitary because of his violent nature.

Pichushkin, 33, lured his victims, many of them homeless, alcoholic and elderly and few mentally retarded, by promising them vodka if they would join him in mourning the death of his dog.

He killed most by throwing them into a sewage pit after they were drunk, and in a few cases strangled or hit them over the head.

Experts at Russia's main psychiatric clinic have found him sane.

Pichushkin denied he was cruel.

"I did not try to cause them special suffering and torment," he said. "That was my style, my signature."