A former associate professor at Sweden's prestigious medical institute is being held in police custody for cutting off his wife's lips with a knife and then eating them in Stockholm.
According to Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper, the 52-year-old-man flew into a jealous rage over suspicions that his much younger wife had been having an extra-marital affair, the Daily Mail
reported.
The man, who is 52, admitted to cutting off his wife's lips in a closed court hearing, the paper reported, saying it was retaliation.
"It was honour related. He doesn't seem to regret a thing. He believes she insulted him," a source with information about the matter told the paper.
The assault was so brutal that the prosecutor tried to have him charged for an attempted murder. The court, however, sought to reduce the charge to aggravated assault.
Ingela Hessius Ekman, who is representing the victim, claimed that her client might have suffered irreparable damage.
"She has very serious injuries, doctors cannot yet determine whether she can be healed or not," she told Aftonbladet.
"She's in a lot of pain," Ekman said.
Ekman informed that the trial is due to commence at the beginning of July.
The man, who is from Iran, was doing post-Doctoral research at the Karolinska institute in 2010.
Though he is now employed with a university in Tehran, he still lived partly in Stockholm, where he collaborated with his old research group at the university, and used its email services and library through a 'declaration of association.'
"It is, of course, a very tragic story," said Bengt Norrving, the institute's director.
"But since the researcher in question is not an employee of Karolinska Institutet we are unable to consider legal action," he added.