Maximum punishments for murderers

From Reuters: "Russia's "chessboard killer" has appealed his life sentence, saying he thinks spending the rest of his life in jail is too strong a punishment for murdering 48 people."

Too bad the chessboard killer doesn't live in Western Europe. As Slate explains these countries often have maximum-imprisonment policies that, for example, in Germany don't allow anyone to spend more than 15 years in prison. Clearly, the chessboard killer made a mistake in not moving to Germany before he started killing.