A carpenter used an axe to chop off the hand of a young woman so he could steal her gold watch, bracelet and rings.
The victim had been talking on her mobile with her other hand lying flat on a fencing post at the side of a street in Russia.
The carpenter, with no previous criminal record, was passing by and suddenly decided to steal the glamorous woman’s jewellery, says his lawyer Sergey Travin.
Prosecutors allege the carpenter used this axe, pictured, to attack the female victim
The carpenter chopped off the woman’s hand to steal her rings and her watch
Sergey Travin, who is representing the alleged attacker said the woman admitted she would have handed over all her belongings if the man had shown her the axe before the attack
On the spur of the moment, he used the axe in the toolkit he was carrying to chop off her hand.
The robber then grabbed the watch and bracelet as well as the severed hand.
After running off, he decided the jewellery was fake and used his axe to further cut up the severed hand into small pieces, meaning it could not be reattached to the woman’s arm by doctors.
The screaming and distraught woman was rushed to hospital covered in blood.
She has not been named.
‘During the (police) investigation, the woman said that if he had shown her the axe, she would have given away everything,’ said Travin, vice president of Federal Union of Lawyers of Russia.
‘The carpenter had no previous criminal history.
‘He’s from a decent family, a father of two, and the owner of a three-floor wooden house that he built himself.
‘Psychiatric tests established that he is compos mentis.’
The carpenter – whose name has not been disclosed – was later charged with robbery.
Reports said that the shocking attack was in Ivanovo region, but police have denied this.
Travin said: ‘This case truly happened and I shared it with other lawyers on Facebook.
‘I didn’t expect that it would cause such an interest.
‘I don’t understand why Ivanovo region is mentioned, this happened at a long distance away.
‘After the buzz in the media, my client told me not to disclose the region.’
He claimed his client has ‘already reimbursed the damage and moral suffering and is strictly against talking to anyone or disclosing any further details’.
The man faces up to seven years in jail.