A Siberian fisherman was handed a 12-year maximum-security prison term for cannibalism, after having initially managed to dodge jail time, prosecutors in the republic of Yakutia said.
The Russian republic's Supreme Court reviewed a lower court's June ruling to let the human-flesh eater off with a suspended sentence, prosecutors said on their website Tuesday.
The convict, Alexei Gorulenko, got lost in the Siberian taiga during a fishing trip with three companions in 2012.
Two of the men were found several months later, emaciated, along with the ax-hacked body of one of their companions. The fate of the fourth fisherman has never been determined.
The fishermen admitted to having eaten part of the corpse, but said they only did so after he died of natural causes.
However, prosecutors accused Gorulenko of having killed the man before eating him. Since Russia's Criminal Code has no article on cannibalism, he was charged with "intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm that resulted in accidental death."
A local court previously convicted Gorulenko of harming, but not killing the victim, but that ruling was overturned on appeal. The other alleged cannibal was never charged in the case.
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