MOSCOW, April 2. /TASS/. A violent felon has been sentenced to life for murdering five women in public parks across Moscow and the surrounding suburbs, the press service of the Russian Investigative Committee told TASS on Tuesday.
"The court sentenced Bakhtiyer Matyakubov to life imprisonment with his sentence to be served in a maximum-security prison. The court satisfied a civil lawsuit to collect five million rubles ($76,450) from Matyakubov in favor of the mother of one of his victims as compensation for moral damage," the press service said.
Detectives established that from January to April 2015, the defendant committed five murders violently attacking his victims, only women, who were followed into desolate areas, and parks. In particular, on March 17, 2015, the convict stabbed a 35-year-old woman in the heart twice who was walking a dog in Izmailovo Park.
The criminal would trail his victims, stalking them at stores and then he would proceed to assault them, using a knife to kill them. The investigation established a distinguishing pattern of his violent crimes.
The perpetrator had been in hiding for a long time, but police eventually caught up to him, finding out where he had lived by discovering his clothes with the bloodstains of two victims found there. Matyakubov was put on the international wanted list and arrested abroad. In December 2017, he was extradited to Moscow.
More than 25 survivors and eyewitnesses were questioned, and more than 35 sophisticated tests were carried out. Based on a psychiatric examination, the man turned out to be emotionally unstable, vindictive, hot-tempered, and suffering from hypermotivity, while having a personal dislike of women. During the preliminary investigation, Matyakubov pleaded guilty to all crimes that he had been charged with, the Investigative Committee reported.