A SELF-confessed `satanist' murdered and mutilated his friend in his north Belfast home, a court has heard.
Sarunas Nauburaitis admitted kicking Latvian national Maris Ludborzs (44) to death last May, then placing a plastic bag over his head and carving the word 'Pig' on his chest after he died.
Nauburaitis also placed a toy rat in the dead man's boxer shorts and poured bleach over the body, which he left to decompose in his Oakley Street home for more than a week.
The 35-year old Lituanianian national stole his dead friend's bank card which he used to buy alcohol and snacks.
Appearing at Belfast Crown Court via a videolink with Maghaberry Nauburaitis heard the prosecution tell the court how on May 23 2020, he walked into Musgrave Park police station and confessed to killing a man.
Officers found the badly decomposed and disfigured remains of Mr Ludborzs in the blood-splattered kitchen.
He had suffered multiple blunt force injuries - most to the head.
The court heard Nauburaitis told police they had been friends from around February 2020 and were involved in a community immigration centre which was closing due to the pandemic.
He said Mr Ludborzs was sleeping on the street so he invited him to stay in his home which his friend did intermittently.
The court heard on the day of the murder Mr Ludborzs was drunk and Nauburaitis became angry when his friend laughed after urinating several times in the house.
Nauburaitis said he asked his friend to repay a £10 debt and as Mr Ludborzs was running to the back door he pulled him back.
He claimed after Mr Ludborzs began urinating again: "I kicked him from behind... maybe 20 or 30" times during which Mr Ludborzs's head hit against a radiator and he "finished him" with the heel of his shoe.
He said he put the plastic bag over his head so if he was alive "he would stop breathing" and carved 'Pig' on his chest and put the toy rat on him, symbolising theft.
He told police he was a Satanist and enjoyed killing animals as a teenager.
The prosecution said it was "a revolting spectacle of the brutality" and "killing was intention - it was cold, it was remorseless".
The defence argued the attack was not ritualistic nor Occultic, describing Nauburaitis as an alcoholic with mental health issues and the killing a "quarrel between two drunk friends, with frankly a terrible aftermath".
Mr Justice O'Hara will set the minimum prison term next Friday.
