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Court sentences historian Sokolov to 12.5 years in prison for murder, possession of arms

Sokolov, born in 1956, was rescued from the Moyka River in St. Petersburg with a backpack containing fragments of a human body

ST. PETERSBURG, December 25. /TASS/. St. Petersburg court sentenced historian Oleg Sokolov to 12.5 years in prison for murder of St. Petersburg State University post-graduate Anastasia Yeshchenko and illegal possession of weapons.

"To impose a cumulative sentence of 12 years and six months in penal colony," Oktyabrsky District Court judge Yulia Maksimenko ruled.

The prosecutors asked for 15 years, while the lawyers argued that Sokolov should be sentenced to 8 years behind bars. Sokolov himself said earlier he "wants to be punished" for his deeds.