Former supermarket worker Alexander Pichushkin confessed to killing 63 people with the goal of marking each death on a chessboard, which has 64 squares.

Prosecutors last month charged him with 49 murders committed between 2001 and 2006 in a park on the edge of Moscow.

Though he claims to have killed several people years earlier, prosecutors had focused on the series of killings that occurred in Bittsa Park in 2001, leading to his nickname as the "Bittsa Maniac." Most of the victims were men, whom Pichushkin had lured to the park with the promise of a drink of vodka to mourn the death of his "beloved" dog.

Pichushkin allegedly killed 11 people in 2001, including six in one month, prosecutors said, adding that he killed about 40 of his first victims by throwing them into a sewage pit and in a few cases strangled or hit them in the head, prosecutors said.

From 2005, he began to kill with "particular cruelty," hitting his intoxicated victims multiple times in the head with a hammer, then sticking an unfinished bottle of vodka into their broken skulls, prosecutors have said. He also no longer tried to conceal the bodies, leaving them at the crime scene.

The decision by the European Court of Justice also is expected to have wider ramifications across Europe, where many governments have tried to protect companies they see as vital to their economies from takeovers, particularly foreign ones.

German politicians and labor unions had argued that the law was needed to protect local jobs but the court, the EU's highest, said it was illegal. It ruled that the law limited "the free movement of capital."

The court also ruled that it discourages foreign investors from taking a stake in Volkswagen because the German federal government and the region of Lower Saxony — a major shareholder — are able "to exercise considerable influence" over the company.

"This situation is liable to deter direct investors from other member states," a court press statement said.

The law caps a shareholder's voting rights at 20 percent, whatever the size of its holding.

In its ruling, the court also rejected the right of both the German federal government and the region of Lower Saxony, which holds 20.36 percent of Volkswagen, to appoint two members of the board as long as they are shareholders of the company.

For Porsche, which has built-up a 31-percent stake in the company over recent years in anticipation that the VW law would be struck down, the ruling gives it carte blanche to take a wider stake.

Porsche AG Chief Executive Wendelin Wiedeking said his company was "naturally very interested in being able to fully exert our voting rights" in Volkswagen. However, he did not refer to the possibility of a takeover — which many analysts expect.

Between them, Porsche and Lower Saxony already hold more than 50 percent in Volkswagen — meaning the door is closed for any would-be foreign suitors.

The court said Germany did not explain why it needed to protect workers by keeping "a strengthened and irremovable" stake in Volkswagen. It also rejected German government arguments that its special position protected minority shareholders.

Lower Saxony's conservative governor, Christian Wulff, said the state government accepted the decision.

He said that Lower Saxony would stand by its stake in Volkswagen and that its aim was "for VW to be a successful company with high sales and satisfied employees with secure jobs, particularly at sites in Lower Saxony."

"The state government wants to ensure this along with the other major shareholder, Porsche," Wulff said.

The ruling is a triumph for the European Commission, which has fought several battles against European governments and their "golden shares" in critical companies.

European Union regulators take their cue from rights enshrined in the EU's founding treaty that proclaim basic economic freedoms such as the right to do business anywhere in the 27-nation bloc.

That right is blocked if governments interfere with companies, the EU executive said.

It took Germany to court in 2005, and has since lined up or threatened cases against Spain over allegations it is protecting energy companies like Endesa SA, Italy for blocking a takeover attempt of highways company Autostrade SpA, and against Poland for hindering Italy's UniCredit SpA from consolidating its grip over a local bank.

Volkswagen — German for "people's car" — is one Germany's best-known companies, renowned for providing well-paid blue-collar jobs. From the ashes of World War II, it has become Europe's largest automaker, with brands from the more affordable Seat and Skoda to the upscale Audi and the stratospherically priced speedsters hand-built by Lamborghini.

Thomas' new autobiography, "My Grandfather's Son," shows how the second black justice on the Supreme Court came to oppose affirmative action after his law school experience. He was one of about 10 blacks in a class of 160 who had arrived at Yale after the unrest of the 1960s, which culminated in a Black Panther Party trial in New Haven that nearly caused a large-scale riot.

The conservative justice says he initially considered his admission to Yale a dream, but soon felt he was there because of his race. He says he loaded up on tough courses to prove he was not inferior to his white classmates but considers the effort futile. He says he was repeatedly turned down in job interviews at law firms after his 1974 graduation.

"I learned the hard way that a law degree from Yale meant one thing for white graduates and another for blacks, no matter how much any one denied it," Thomas writes. "I'd graduated from one of America's top law schools, but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value."

Thomas says he stores his Yale Law degree in his basement with a 15-cent sticker from a cigar package on the frame.

His view isn't shared by black classmate William Coleman III.

"I can only say my degree from Yale Law School has been a great boon," said Coleman, now an attorney in Philadelphia. "Had he not gone to a school like Yale, he would not be sitting on the Supreme Court."

Coleman's Yale roommate, Bill Clinton, appointed him general counsel to the U.S. Army, one of several top jobs Coleman has held over the years.

Thomas said he began interviewing with law firms at the beginning of his third year of law school.

"Many asked pointed questions unsubtly suggesting that they doubted I was as smart as my grades indicated," he wrote. "Now I knew what a law degree from Yale was worth when it bore the taint of racial preference."

He said it was months before he got an offer, from then-Missouri Attorney General John Danforth.

Steven Duke, a white Yale law professor who taught when Thomas attended Yale, said Thomas is right to say that the significance of someone's degree could be called into question if the person was admitted to an institution on a preferential basis. However, he said that could be overcome by strong performance, noting that two Yale graduates — Danforth and President Bush — put Thomas into top jobs.

"I find it difficult to believe he actually regrets the choice he made," Duke said. "It seems to me he did pretty well."

Some classmates say Thomas — who was raised poor in Georgia and stood out on campus in his overalls and heavy black boots — faced a tougher transition than black students who came from middle-class or privileged backgrounds.

Frank Washington, a black classmate and friend of Thomas who also came from a lower-income background, said he had 42 interviews before he landed a job at a Washington law firm.

"It seemed like I had to go through many more interviews than a lot of my other non-minority classmates," said Washington, now an entrepreneur who owns radio and television stations.

Other black classmates say their backgrounds didn't matter.

Edgar Taplin Jr., raised by a single parent in New Orleans, said he landed a job after graduation at the oldest law firm in New York, and does not recall black graduates struggling more to get jobs than their white classmates.

"My degree was worth a lot more than 15 cents," said Taplin, who retired in 2003 as a global manager with Exxon Mobil.

Thomas has declined to have his portrait hung at Yale Law School along with other graduates who became U.S. Supreme Court justices. An earlier book, "Supreme Discomfort," by Washington Post reporters Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher, portrays Thomas as still upset some Yale professors opposed his confirmation during hearings marked by Anita Hill's allegations that Thomas sexually harassed her.

Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh turned down requests for interviews about the justice's book, but said in a statement that he and his predecessors have invited Thomas to have his portrait done and the offer still stands.

Koh said they met for several hours about a year ago. "He made it clear that he had greatly enjoyed his time at Yale Law School, and that he had great affection for his fellow students and for several professors who are still here," he said.