BUCHAREST, Sept 20: A Romanian priest charged with crucifying a nun he believed was possessed by the devil had his 14-year prison sentence cut by half by an appeal court on Thursday, legal sources said.

The court in the central town of Alba-Iulia also reduced from eight years to six, the jail term imposed on one of four nuns found guilty of being accomplices to the exorcism-turned-murder, while maintaining a five-year sentence for the other three.

The murdered nun, 23-year-old Irina Cornici of the Saint Trinity of Tanacu monastery in northeastern Romania, died after being gagged, chained to a cross and left without food or water for days. The priest, Daniel Corogeanu, and the four nuns were charged with illegal confinement and murder following the discovery of Cornici’s body in 2005.

Expelled from their order, they maintained their innocence, claiming they acted to deliver the young woman, who suffered from psychological problems, from evil. The five defendants, along with the Husi diocese in northern Romania, were also ordered to pay jointly $4,200 in damages to the victim’s parents.

The case sparked an outcry in Romania against the “mediaeval” practices tolerated by the Orthodox Church, to which a majority of the population belongs.—AFP