Alex Wiens is led into a courtroom in Dresden, 10 Nov 2009A Russian-born German has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a pregnant Egyptian woman stabbed to death earlier this year in a German courtroom.

Defendant Alex Wiens admitted to stabbing Marwa El-Sherbini to death during a July 1 court hearing in Dresden. El-Sherbini was in court at the time pressing a case against Wiens for insulting her with ethnic slurs.  

El-Sherbini was stabbed at least 16 times and died at the scene as her 3-year-old son looked on. Her husband was also stabbed repeatedly as he tried to come to her aid.

Defense lawyers insisted during the trial that the killing was not premeditated and that a psychiatric condition mitigated the crime.

Prosecutors argued that Wiens was driven by what they called "an unbridled hatred of foreigners."

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP and Reuters.