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Dismemberment suspect found guilty

MONTREAL (AP) – A jury found a Canadian man guilty on Tuesday of killing and dismembering his Chinese lover and mailing the body parts to schools and political parties around the country.

Luka Magnotta was convicted of first-degree murder in the 2012 slaying of Jun Lin after eight days of jury deliberations. He was also convicted on the four other related charges.

Magnotta, 32, had pleaded not guilty. While he admitted to the slaying, he sought to be found not criminally responsible by reason of insanity. His lawyer argued he is schizophrenic and couldn’t tell right from wrong at the time of the slaying.

The prosecution countered the crime was both planned and deliberate and that Magnotta’s behavior and actions were not those of an insane person.

The case shocked Canadians and quickly gained international notoriety when body parts arrived at offices of Canada’s biggest political parties and a video appeared online that prosecutors say shows Magnotta stabbing and having sex with the dismembered corpse.

In May 2012, a package containing a severed foot was found at the headquarters of Canada’s ruling Conservative Party. That same day, a hand was discovered at a postal facility, in a package addressed to the Liberal Party of Canada.

Lin’s torso was found in a suitcase at a garbage dump outside Magnotta’s apartment building in Montreal. About a week later, the missing foot and hand were found mailed to two schools in Vancouver.

Magnotta eventually was arrested in Berlin after an international manhunt.

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