A prominent Saint Petersburg-based Napoleon expert has confessed to murdering his lover and former student and dismembering her body.
Oleg Sokolov, a 63-year-old history lecturer who received France's Legion d'Honneur in 2003, was arrested yesterday on suspicion of murder after he was pulled out of Saint Petersburg's Moika River with a backpack containing a woman's arms.
Mr Sokolov was reportedly drunk and fell in as he tried to dispose of body parts.
"He has admitted his guilt," Mr Sokolov's lawyer Alexander Pochuev said, adding he regretted what he had done and was now cooperating.
Mr Sokolov reportedly told investigators that he killed his girlfriend during an argument and then dismembered her.
He planned to dispose of her corpse and later publicly die by suicide dressed up as Napoleon.
Mr Pochuev suggested Mr Sokolov may have been under stress or emotionally disturbed.
"He is an elderly person," he said, adding he was being treated for hypothermia in a local hospital.
He declined to release further details.
The historian is the author of books on French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and had acted as a historical consultant on several films.
Police discovered the decapitated body of Anastasia Yeshchenko, 24, with whom Sokolov had co-authored a number of works, at his home.
Both of them studied French history and liked to wear period costumes, with Mr Sokolov dressing up as Napoleon.
Mr Sokolov was also a member of Lyon-based Institute of Social Science, Economics and Politics (ISSEP).
The society has announced that he had been stripped of his position on its scientific committee.
"We learn with horror about the atrocious crime of which Oleg Sokolov is allegedly guilty," it said in a statement on Twitter.
As an academic of such standing, the statement added, "we could never imagine that he could commit such an odious act".
ISSEP was founded by Marion Marechal, the niece of Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally party.
