A “human butchery”: the leader of a group of men tried for having carried out mutilations, including castrations filmed and broadcast on a paid website, was sentenced Thursday to life in prison by a London court.
Marius Gustavson, 46, was prosecuted for a series of offenses linked to “extreme body modifications” on 13 victims – including himself -, as well as the removal and commercialization of certain parts of the victims’ bodies and the online videos.
He had created a paid website to disseminate images of these body modifications and claimed “the making of eunuchs”, a reference to the “nullo” movement which brings together people who have experienced body modification such as the removal of their genitals.
With 22,000 subscribers, his site brought in nearly 300,000 pounds (around 340,000 francs) between 2017 and 2021.
If the victims had apparently consented to these ablations, some of the events that occurred amounted to “almost human butchery,” said Judge Mark Lucraft, handing down the sentence of life imprisonment, accompanied by a security period. 22 years old.
According to him, Marius Gustavson was the mastermind of this “large-scale” enterprise, having on one occasion even cooked “human testicles, which were put on a plate to be eaten.”
This man, originally from Norway and living in north London, cut off his own penis and leg after asking an accomplice to freeze it.
According to the prosecution, he was personally involved in at least 29 procedures targeting him or other people.
A victim’s complaint to the police was followed by several arrests in London, Scotland and Wales.
Six other men were being prosecuted at the Old Bailey court in London for conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm. They admitted the facts and were sentenced Thursday to sentences ranging from 4 and a half to 12 years in prison.
During the trial, Marius Gustavson’s lawyer, Rashvinderjeet Panesar, claimed that his client was driven by the need to be “the architect of his own body”, after the breakdown of his marriage in 2016.
