Paraplegic gets 30 years for 2 killings

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LONDON, June 16 (UPI) -- A man paralyzed in a suicide attempt after his arrest was sentenced to at least 30 years in an English prison Friday for killing his ex-wife and mother-in-law.

Sergei Zolotovsky, 44, a Russian immigrant, was brought to the courtroom in the Old Bailey in a hospital bed, The Sun reported. He attended his trial in March the same way.

Svetlana Zolotovska, 40, was stabbed as she walked to work in 2010. Sergei Zolotovsky then stabbed Antonina Belska, 70, at the home he and his wife had shared until their divorce.

Judge Stephen Kramer called the killings "pitiless" and said Sergei Zolotovsky was determined to get revenge because he believed the divorce settlement was unfair.

"In your view your ex-wife was a sinner, indeed you wrote a note calling her a sinner," the judge said. "In your opinion she had taken everything and left you with nothing."

Charles Bott, the defense lawyer, called the killings a "grotesque episode of destructive behavior" but said there was an "identifiable cause" -- his client's sense of injustice.

"What he has done for lamentable reasons is to destroy three lives, including his own." Bott said.

Sergei Zolotovsky became paraplegic when he threw himself off a jail landing 12 days after the killings.