A Romanian man who took a selfie with a woman he raped and left to die on a freezing cold beach has been jailed for 25 years.

Alexandru Caliniuc, 27, was sentenced by a court in the Belgian municipality of West Flanders on 25th May.

Caliniuc was found guilty of the death of Sofia Muylle, from the Belgian city of Roeselare, after raping her and leaving her for dead on a freezing cold beach in Knokke on 22nd January 2017.

Sofia’s lifeless body was found under a wooden pier by a passerby after her boyfriend reported her disappearance to the police when she failed to return home from a night out.

The court heard: “At no time did he treat her like a flesh and blood equal but as an object. It seems that this did not arouse pity, but pure fantasy. This is proof of a deeply disturbed individual and deep sexual depravity.”

The Romanian defendant also reportedly filmed the entire ordeal with his mobile phone and took a selfie with his dying victim.

Caliniuc was arrested in his home country in June 2017. Further investigation revealed that his DNA matched semen found on the victim and her clothes.

The defendant admitted that he raped the victim, but denied wanting to kill her after she died of hypothermia on the freezing beach.

Prosecutors asked for life imprisonment, but the court took into account the defendant’s age and the fact that he had no previous criminal record.