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Investigation in contract murder of St Petersburg university rector over

MOSCOW, January 09. /ITAR-TASS/. The investigation department of the Russian Investigative Committee in the North-Western Federal District has completed an investigation of a criminal case against Vitaly Kovalev, who is accused as an accomplice in the murder of rector of St. Petersburg State University of Service and Economics Aleksander Viktorov, the Investigative Committee reported at its website on Thursday.

Kovalev is accused of contract murder and illegal acquisition and storage of firearms.

“The detectives have found that Kovalev, who had masterminded the murder of Aleksander Viktorov, involved his acquaintances Vyacheslav Makarov and Andrey Yeliseyev in the murder, promising a criminal reward to them. According to the criminal scheme, being a mastermind of the crime Kovalev was expected to pass the information about Viktorov’s private life needed for the murder, a gun with silencer and ammunition to Makarov and Yeliseyev,” the committee reported.

Kovalev was also tracking down Viktorov, informed about his whereabouts to Makarov, the latter subsequently informed Yeliseyev. On September 5, 2012, upon receiving the information needed for the murder from Kovalev, Yeliseyev came to a residential district, where the murder victim lived, and has made at least five gunshots in him.

Later in the investigation of this criminal case Makarov and Kovalev were found involved in masterminding the murder of the St. Petersburg resident.

“The detectives have gathered enough evidence and a criminal case versus Kovalev was submitted in the court for the indictment to be approved and further merit court proceedings,” the Investigative Committee said.

The court has earlier sentenced Makarov and Yeliseyev to nine and 13 years in a high security prison, respectively.

The rector of the St. Petersburg university was killed in the evening of September 5, 2012. The 61-year-old university rector was gunned down, when he and his wife were getting out of a service car at their house in the Leningrad regional city of Vsevolozhsk. He died at the murder scene, his wife was wounded.

The detectives have found that the crime had been related with commercial activity of the university, however, a murder contractor was not officially named. The police and agents of the Federal Security Service detained three suspected killers on October 1, 2012.

Viktorov was named as the rector of St. Petersburg State University of Service and Economics in 2008. From 2001 to 2008 he has headed the committee for science and higher education at the St. Petersburg government.

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