Man gets 5 years for biting, eating wife's lip

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STOCKHOLM, Sweden, July 10 (UPI) -- A Swedish man who cut off his wife's lip and ate it to bar her from kissing another man has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Prosecutor Ingela Hessius said the sentence was less than she had hoped, saying she argued for a longer sentence because of the monstrous nature of the crime, Swedish media reported Tuesday.

"We wanted eight years, but the important thing is that he has been convicted," she told Aftonbladet.

He also was ordered to pay the woman $13,800 in compensation.

The 52-year-old man, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute north of Stockholm, attacked his wife in May while she slept in their home south of the city. He was suspicious that his 32-year-old spouse was being unfaithful. The man said he swallowed the lip so it couldn't be reattached.

The Swedish news agency TT did not identify the defendant or his wife.

Police statements indicated the man told his wife he was "going to see to it that you can never kiss again. I'll get four years in prison; you'll get a life sentence."

The woman met the professor in Iran, and he helped her come to Sweden to study at Karolinska, TT said. When he fell in love with her, he left his wife to marry her, but his new wife filed for divorce six months after marriage.

During the trial, the researcher expressed little remorse, Expressen said.

"Every time she stands in front of a mirror and puts on lipstick she will have to think about what she's done to me," he told the court.