MINSK, September 19. /TASS/. A Russian national detained in November 2015 in Belarus, may be involved in over 100 sexual assaults against women, the Interior Affairs Directorate of the District Executive Committee of the country’s capital of Minsk said.
"A Russian national suspected of committing a string of sexual assaults, says that he has raped about 100 women over the course of twenty years. Only around half of the victims have been identified, the identities of the others are being established," the district police said.
A source in the Interior Affairs Directorate stated that the suspect was detained last November for a slew of sexual assaults in the Brest and Minsk regions. He is a 45-year old resident of Saint-Petersburg who occasionally came to Belarus to visit his relatives living in the Brest region. "He had been committing these crimes during his visits from 1994 to 2014," the police source said.
According to the law enforcement officials, women of different ages, including underage girls, have fallen victim to the rapist. The first reports by victims were filed in 1999. "However, the suspect claims that he started sexually assaulting women in 1994. This information has been confirmed during the investigation," the police stated.
"We are pretty sure that the identities of some victims of the suspect’s crimes as well as some facts concerning the rapes committed in the Minsk region, have yet to be established. That is why we call on the citizens to assist in the investigation by providing information," the head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Interior Affairs Directorate of the Minsk District Executive Committee Igor Shcherbachnya said.