Pair Jailed for Life in Case of Severed Head on British Beach
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A former Russian Army soldier and his accomplice have been jailed for life for murdering a Lithuanian migrant worker whose severed head was found on a British beach.
The pair bound, gagged and suffocated Jolanta Bledaite after forcing her to give them access to her savings.
They then chopped up her body and disposed of her mutilated parts in the sea, Edinburgh High Court heard.
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The victim's head and hands were discovered by two girls when they washed up on Arbroath beach.
Soldier Vitas Plytnykas, 41, was told he must spend at least 28 years in jail for the "monstrous" murder.
Plytnykas had previously been convicted of manslaughter after stabbing a man in Germany in 2000.
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He arrived in the U.K. around two years ago and lived in a migrant community where "a lot of people were scared of him," police said.
Bledaite's other killer was her roommate, 20-year-old Aleksandras Skirda, who will have to serve 20 years before he is eligible for parole.
After Plytnykas' trial Detective Inspector Gordon Cryle from Tayside Police described the murder as "one of the most horrific" he could remember in Angus.
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"Jolanta Bledaite's final moments of life must have been filled with terror and dread," he said.
"These evil men showed her no mercy whatsoever, blinded by a callous determination to rob her of her hard-earned savings."