Sessions court judge B D Kapadnis found Shaikh guilty of destroying evidence and sentenced him to seven years rigorous imprisonment (RI). The judge also found him guilty of committing a theft, for which he was sentenced to three years’ RI.

The order stated that Shaikh will have to undergo an additional RI for 21 months if he fails to pay a fine of Rs 11,000. The judge, however, acquitted the second suspect Mohammed Safi Mohammed Yakub Shaikh (27) due to lack of evidence. He was facing the charge of assisting the convict in committing the crime.

It may be recalled that the Bund Garden police had found the decapitated body of Corvinus from her apartment in Liberty society at Koregaon Park on January 7 three years ago. Investigations revealed that Shaikh had murdered her on January 1 to gain control of her properties — two apartments at Liberty society, costing about Rs one crore then.

Police had said while filing the case that Shaikh had got in touch with Corvinus about a month before she was killed. Corvinus wanted to sell her apartment and Shaikh gave her a cheque of Rs 31 lakh from a potential buyer and demanded a signed receipt. Shaikh was planning to forge her signature to get power of attorney to her properties, police said.

The sequence of events was as follows: On January 1, 2006, Shaikh visited Corvinus at her residence. He slit her throat using a kitchen knife. He then decapitated her, put her head in a handbag and threw it in the Mula-Mutha river under the Mundwa-Kharadi bridge. His plan was to cut her body into small pieces and thus get rid of the evidence.

But before he could do that, police arrested Shaikh on January 8. Police got to know that she was planning to sell her property and had contacted some real estate agents. Shaikh was held during investigations. An injury mark on his left hand helped the police identify him as the culprit.

The victim
German archaeologist Gudrun Corvinus was associated with Pune for 30 years from 1976, when she came to the Deccan College as a guest lecturer. She also married a Pune-based scientist, though they divorced after a few years.