MOSCOW, September 27 (RAPSI) – The St. Petersburg City Court on Monday upheld sentence passed on Russian historian Sokolov, who had received 12.5 years in high-security prison for killing his postgraduate student Anastasia Yeshchenko and arms trafficking.

The historian was convicted last December. A part of the prison term, 1.5 years, the historian got for the possession of firearms. 

As established by a district court in St. Petersburg, Sokolov murdered his female student in the course of a domestic quarrel by shooting her four times in the head from a saw-off gun; after that he dismembered her body and tried to bury the remains in a local river; he was caught in the act.

The historian pleaded guilty.

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.