THESSALONIKI (AP) — A Greek court has sentenced a university lecturer to two life terms for the fatal poisoning by arsenic of his wife and her grandmother several years ago.

The court ruled late Thursday that the 46-year-old geology lecturer at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki gradually poisoned his 34-year-old wife and her 85-year-old grandmother in August 2013.

The lecturer denied the charges, insisting the two women had been poisoned by a high arsenic content in the water supply at his family’s holiday home, and pointed to tests that showed both he and his daughter also had elevated levels of arsenic in their bodies. He has appealed the verdict.

Authorities began investigating the deaths after high levels of arsenic were found in samples from the grandmother. The two women’s bodies were exhumed.