A Ukrainian ex-sailor who murdered 52 people was sentenced to death yesterday in Jitomir, Ukraine, saying he had no regrets and saw himself as "a warning horror to mankind to live differently".
Serial killer Anatoly Onopriyenko (39) was sentenced to die by a bullet through the back of the head for the murders, which included 10 children.
Onopriyenko showed no remorse and said he was ready to die "in public". The murderer, who boasted during the trial he was "the best killer in the world", remained impassive during sentence, staring at the floor of the iron cage in which he was held throughout the proceedings.
"This verdict doesn't concern me. In any case, I don't want to live," he said. "I've seen it all and life doesn't interest me any more.
"People don't appreciate life," he said. "To be more sensitive they have to see horrors. I'm the horror who forces people to try to live differently."
The convicted multiple murderer also declared: "If I could, I would go to Germany and kill hundreds of people in an even crueller way."
Onopriyenko carried out 43 of the murders in a five-month orgy of killing across Ukraine. His favoured technique was to choose isolated dwellings, injure his victims with a hunting gun and finish them off with knives, axes or hammers.
The condemned man said he had nothing to say to the families of his victims and would not request a presidential pardon.