ST. PETERSBURG, April 9 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) – The hearing of a case against history professor Oleg Sokolov charged with killing his postgraduate student Anastasia Yeshchenko and ammunition trafficking scheduled for Thursday was postoponed because of the quarantine in his detention center, the United press service of St. Petersburg courts reports.

Accused persons are not transferred from detention to courts. According to the Criminal Procedure Code, the trial cannot be held through videoconference, the statement reads.

A new date for the beginning of the trial is not set yet.

In late March, the Oktyabrsky District Court of St. Petersburg extended detention of Sokolov until September 23.

According to investigators, rescuers pulled the 63-year reader out of a local river early on November 9 and hospitalized. Woman’s severed hands and a nonlethal pistol were found in his backpack. Other parts of her body were found in his flat. The man was arrested when left the hospital the next day. He voluntary surrendered.

The victim was identified as the 24-year postgraduate student of the St. Petersburg State University and Sokolov’s partner.

The professor pleaded guilty. He said that he gunned the woman and broke up her body.

Sokolov is a historian and ideologist of reconstruction of Napoleonic period battles. He has been conferred the Legion of Honor, the French national award instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte.