A Bangladeshi court has sentenced a confessed serial killer to hang for the murder of a female garment worker who was tortured before being thrown in a river, a prosecutor said Thursday.

A judge sentenced Rasu Khan to death for the murder of the 19-year-old in 2008, but he has confessed to killing in a similar manner 10 other women, mostly garment workers.

Khan, who is being tried separately for all of the murders, showed little emotion when the sentence was handed down on Wednesday when the judge reportedly described him as a “professional serial killer and a pervert”.

“He lured Shahida (the victim) to a village in (the southern town of) Chandpur by promising her marriage,” prosecutor Mojibur Rahman said.

“They had sex at a haystack and then he tied her legs and hands before drowning her in a river,” Rahman told AFP.

Police stumbled on the murders during the arrest and questioning of the 50-year-old for stealing a loudspeaker from a mosque in 2009 when he alluded to the horrific crimes.

He later confessed to a magistrate that he had killed at least 11 women, all but one of them garment factory workers.

“There are chilling similarities in all his killings. The victims’ bodies had marks of human bites, their breasts and genitalia were hit with sharp objects and most of them were drowned,” said Rahman.

Khan has never explained why he targeted garment workers, but he has told the court that he hated women and was seeking revenge after being spurned when he was younger, Rahman said.

“He told the court that he would quit murdering girls after the tally hit 101 women and then he would live as an ascetic in a Sufi shrine,” Shaidul Islam, another prosecutor, said.