MONTREAL (REUTERS) - The Canadian man convicted of dismembering a Chinese student was "worse than a beast", the student's father said on Monday.

Mr Lin Diran, speaking for the first time since a jury last week found Luka Magnotta guilty of first degree murder, said the 2012 killing of his only son had crippled the Lin family.

Magnotta, 32, had admitted to killing and dismembering engineering student Lin Jun, 33, but pleaded not guilty on grounds of mental illness.

"He is a beast ... worse than a beast," Mr Lin told reporters through a translator. "I just want to ask him why he did this. What he did is very cruel."

Magnotta was also found guilty of committing an indignity to a human body, publishing and mailing obscene material, and criminally harassing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members of Parliament.

During a grisly 11-week trial, the prosecution had argued that Magnotta, a gay escort, was "a man on a mission" who carefully planned his acts.

Magnotta faces a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole for at least 25 years.

Mr Lin Diran quit his job in China and came to Canada in September to attend the trial while his wife and daughter remained in China.

His wife is under a doctor's care and his daughter has been unable to work since the killing, he said.

"Even though I lost my son, I'm satisfied with the final result," he said on Monday, frequently breaking down in tears.

"He got the highest penalty and I'm happy about it."

The case gripped Canada in the spring of 2012 after Mr Lin's body parts were found in the trash behind a Montreal apartment building and in packages mailed to elementary schools in Vancouver and political parties in Ottawa.

The mailed packages contained hands and feet wrapped in pink tissue paper as well as notes and poems.

A video Magnotta made of the killing appeared on the Internet.

Magnotta fled to Europe after the killing and was arrested in a Berlin Internet cafe, where he was reading about himself.