Ex-porn actor nabbed by Turk gets life sentence for gruesome murder

MONTREAL

Rocco Luka Magnotta, also known as Eric Clinton Newman and Vladimir Romanov, is shown in this undated handout photo released by the Montreal Police to Reuters on May 30, 2012. REUTERS Photo

A jury in Montreal found a one-time porn actor guilty Dec. 23 in the murder of a Chinese student with an ice pick before being caught thanks to the attentiveness of a Turkish café employee.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, 32, closed his eyes and showed no emotion as the verdict – which carries an automatic life sentence with no parole for 25 years – was read out in the Quebec Superior Court, Agence France-Presse reported.

Magnotta had admitted to killing 33-year-old Lin Jun in May 2012, but pleaded not guilty to first degree murder, in one of the most sensational homicide cases in the annals of Canadian justice.

The jury of eight women and four men delivered its unanimous decision after eight days of deliberations. The trial began in September.

“We had faith that the proof presented during the trial would be successful in convincing the jury,” prosecutor Louis Bouthillier told reporters.

Justice Guy Cournoyer said last week that Magnotta’s personality disorder qualified as a mental illness in Canadian law.

But Bouthillier argued the accused was able to discern right from wrong and had planned the brutal killing.

He said Magnotta – who appeared in homosexual adult videos a decade ago – prepared for the murder at least six months in advance and had acted with premeditation before, during and after the crime.

Magnotta had acknowledged using an ice pick to fatally stab Lin, a student at Montreal’s Concordia University, before sexually abusing and dismembering his victim’s corpse.

He then posted a video of the heinous act online to the soundtrack of the movie “American Psycho.”

Days after the killing, Montreal police discovered Lin’s torso in a suitcase by the trash outside an apartment building on a busy highway.

His severed hands and feet were sent in the mail to federal political parties in Ottawa and to two elementary schools in Vancouver.

Lin’s head was found in a Montreal park months later, after police received a tip via a three-page fax that contained precise directions.

For his part, Magnotta cleaned out his Montreal apartment and fled to Paris and Berlin. He was reportedly arrested at an Internet café in the German capital in June 2012, after a Turkish café employee recognized him from a newspaper photo and notified the police.

Surveillance videos figured prominently in his trial, enabling jurors to retrace his steps from his Montreal apartment to a Paris hotel lobby.

Lin Jun’s father Lin Diran was present in the courtroom Dec. 23 for the verdict.

“I had come to see your trial system to see justice done and I leave satisfied that you have not let my son down,” he said in a statement.

“I had come to learn what happened to my son that night and I leave without a true or a complete answer,” he added.

“I had come to see remorse, to hear some form of apology and I leave without anything.”

Magnotta’s lawyers, who contended their client was not criminally responsible due to mental illness, have 30 days in which to file an appeal.

Besides the murder, Magnotta was charged – and convicted – of committing an indignity to a body, spreading obscene material on the Internet, sending body parts through the mail and harassing the prime minister of Canada.