The Russian historian who confessed to killing and dismembering his student and girlfriend has been transferred to a psychiatric ward in a Moscow detention facility.
Aleksandr Pochuyev, the lawyer for Oleg Sokolov, said on December 2 that his client was transferred to the ward in the Russian capital for a psychiatric evaluation.
Interfax quoted an official from the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission as saying Sokolov was reading and did not complain in a conversation they had, though he did say he wanted to return to St. Petersburg, where he was transferred from.
The 63-year-old historian, who was once awarded France’s Legion of Honor for his research into military leader Napoleon Bonaparte, was detained in St. Petersburg on November 9 after being pulled out of the Moika River with a backpack containing the severed body parts of a young woman.
Investigators later found the woman's head in his apartment.
On November 11, Sokolov admitted in court that he killed and dismembered his former student and lover who was a 24-year-old postgraduate student.
The court has ordered that Sokolov be held in pretrial detention for two months while the investigation is carried out.
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