ST. PETERSBURG, November 11. /TASS/. Oleg Sokolov, a lecturer of St. Petersburg State University and a historian, who has actually confessed to the murder of a young woman by signing a plea bargain deal, on Monday refused to testify and tell the investigators the details of the crime.
"Sokolov has refused to give testimony citing Article 51 of the Russian constitution (No one shall be obliged to give incriminating evidence, husband or wife and close relatives the range of whom is determined by the federal law)," Judge Yulia Maximenko said at a session of St. Petersburg’s Oktyabrsky district court, which ruled to take the man in custody for two months.
Nevertheless, Sokolov confessed the murder on grounds of personal conflict. He said his fianc·e, Anastasia Yeshchenko, had been antagonistic to his two minor children of his first marriage. He refrained from further details. He recognized the court’s arrest ruling as fair but his defense lawyers asked the court to place him under house arrest, saying he posed no threat to society. However murder charges have not yet been brought against the man.
Early on November 9, Sokolov, born in 1956, was rescued from a river. He had a backpack with human remains. More fragment of a human body were found at his apartment. A criminal case was opened on murder charges (part 1, article 105 of the Russian Criminal Code). According to sources in law enforcement agencies, Sokolov’s victim was identified as Anastasia Yeshchenko, a postgraduate student who had been Sokolov’s co-author in joint studies and could have had sexual relationship with the man. Yeshchenko, born in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Territory, graduated from the St. Petersburg State University three years ago to continue as a postgraduate student.
According to a source in investigative bodies, Sokolov shot and killed Yeshchenko from a half-barrel gun on November 7 presumably during a quarrel. He dismembered the body and tried to toss the fragments into the river.