The Moscow City Court sentenced the killer of a Roman Catholic priest to 14 years in a maximum-security prison Tuesday, Interfax reported.
Mikhail Orekhov, 39, was found guilty of killing Victor Betancourt, 42, a Jesuit priest from Ecuador, in November 2008 in an apartment where Betancourt lived in central Moscow.
Prosecutors had sought a 15-year sentence.
Orekhov also had been accused of killing Russia’s top Jesuit, Russian citizen Otto Messmer, 47, in the apartment, but a jury cleared him of the charge.
Prosecutors said Orekhov was drunk when he attacked Betancourt and was acting after the priest made inappropriate sexual advances.
“The probe found that Orekhov’s criminal intent to kill Betancourt emerged when he was in a state of alcoholic intoxication, on the grounds of hostile personal relations after the victim tried to seduce the Russian into engaging in sexual intercourse,” the prosecutors said in a statement.
Catholic officials have dismissed the allegation that Betancourt might have acted inappropriately.
No additional information was immediately released from the closed-door trial.
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