ST. PETERSBURG, November 11. /TASS/. Oleg Sokolov, a lecturer of St. Petersburg State University and a historian, has been charged with murdering a young woman, Sokolov’s defense lawyer Alexander Pochuyev said on Monday.
"Murder charges have been brought," he told journalists.
Earlier in the day, St. Petersburg’s Oktyabrsky district court ruled to place the man in custody.
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 and 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).
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 preliminarily 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. The official identification procedure has not yet been carried out.
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.
Sokolov confessed to having made four shots at the girl from a small-bore rifle.