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3 suspected killers of rector of St Petersburg university detained

Alexander Viktorov was shot down at his own house in Vsevolozhsk on September 5
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

ST. PETERSBURG, October 1 (Itar-Tass) —— Three suspected killers of rector of the St. Petersburg State University of Service and Economics Alexander Viktorov were detained. Viktorov was shot down at his own house in Vsevolozhsk on September 5.

“On September 30, the officers of the St. Petersburg criminal search department together with their counterparts from the Federal Security Service carried out an operation to detain the suspects in the murder of Alexander Viktorov,” a source in the main Interior Ministry’s department for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region told Itar-Tass on Monday.

“The detectives are investigating a version of Viktorov’s murder related with his activities at the post of the university rector as the main murder theory,” a police source said, noting that a murder contractor is being searched for.

The police source noted that the suspected direct participants in the murder, namely the contract killer who shot Viktorov down, his accomplice and the mastermind of the murder were detained. “All three participants in the murder have previous convictions for grave and heinous crimes. The man, who is suspected to be the contract killer, has the previous conviction for the contract murder,” the police source said.

“Over the danger from the suspects the police commandoes were participating in an operation to detain them. Two direct suspected killers were detained on the corner of the Moskovsky Avenue and the embankment of the Obvodnoy Canal in a minivan. The third man, who was suspected of masterminding the murder, was detained in a rented flat in the Primorsky district in St. Petersburg,” the police source said.

Alexander Viktorov, 61, was gunned down in the evening on September 5, when the latter together with his wife went out from his office car at his house in the Yagodny Bystreet in Vsevolozhsk. The killer has made several gunshots in the back and head to Viktorov on the premises of his house. The university rector died instantaneously at the murder scene. His wife got a gunshot wound in the right hip and was hospitalized.

The criminal case was opened under Article 105 of the Criminal Code for murder.

Alexander Viktorov was appointed as the rector of the St. Petersburg State University of Service and Economics in 2008. From 2001 to 2008 Viktorov headed the Committee for Science and Higher Education in the St. Petersburg government.