Moscow, Dec 10 (IANS): A Russian court on Monday sentenced a former policeman, described as the country's "most prolific mass murderer in modern time", to a second life imprisonment for committing 56 murders, while he is already serving one for killing 22 women, the media reported.

Mikhail Popkov, 53, was found guilty of murdering 56 women near the Siberian city of Irkutsk between 1992 and 2007. He is currently serving a life term given to him in January 2015 for 22 other murders.

His victims were all women between the ages of 16 and 40 apart from one male, a policeman, the BBC reported.

Popkov hacked women to death after offering them rides in his car late at night. At least 10 were also raped. In three cases he was on duty in his police car. He was caught in 2012 after a DNA match identified his car.

Popkov killed the women around the city of Angarsk, near Irkutsk, with an axe and hammer. Later, he used to dump their mutilated bodies in forests, by the roadside and in a local cemetery.

He had earlier claimed that he was "purging" Angarsk of immoral women.

Chief Public Prosecutor for the Irkutsk region, Alexander Shkinev, said that psychological and psychiatric examination showed that Popkov committed the crimes out of homicidomania -- a mania for murder. Still, he was ruled sane, TASS news agency reported.