Jolanta's murderer a 'Hannibal Lecter' as verdict due

Published on Thursday 12 February 2009 21:12

A JURY will be asked today to decide whether the "gruesome and brutal" murder of a Lithuanian farm worker had been the crime of only one man, or whether he had an accomplice.

The prosecution at the High Court in Edinburgh urged the ten women and five men on the jury to believe the word of the self-confessed killer, Aleksandras Skirda, 20, that Vitas Plytnykas, 41, had played the leading role in the death of Jolanta Bledaite, 35.

However, the lawyer for Plytnykas claimed Skirda was the Hannibal Lecter-type "face of evil" and "an unrepentant liar" trying to win a lighter sentence.

Ms Bledaite's head and hands were washed up on a beach at Arbroath, Angus, on 1 April last year, and her body, stuffed into a suitcase, was later recovered from the water in the town's harbour.

Skirda has admitted murdering Ms Bledaite, a fellow Lithuanian, at the flat they shared in Brechin, and dismembering and disposing of the body. He claimed he held Ms Bledaite's legs, while Plytnykas put a pillow over her face, and that Plytnykas had cut off her head and hands.

Plytnykas, also Lithuanian, denies the charges and has incriminated Skirda. Alex Prentice, QC, the advocate-depute, said Ms Bledaite had come to the UK to work and perhaps to make a better life.

He added: "She kept herself to herself, working hard and saving her honestly-earned money. Two men decided to take that money."

Paul McBride, QC, for Plytnykas, said if the jurors had ever thought a murderer had horns and appeared Satanic, they should look at Skirda, "a boy with blue eyes, blond hair and an innocent face, butter not melting in his mouth. That face that passed before you in the witness box is the face of evil. You have seen the movie Hannibal Lecter. This is for real."

The trial continues.