MURDER OF AFRICAN STUDENT IN ST. PETERSBURG SOLVED

Kommersant, Russia
Sept 16 2005

Vladislav Piotrovksy, head of the criminal police of the Main
Department of Interior Affairs in St. Petersburg, announced yesterday
that the murder of Congolese student Roland Epassaka, who died Tuesday
night after being knifed on September 9, had been solved.

Piotrovsky and other city officials met with about 100 students from
African and Asian countries yesterday in the building of the city’s
legislative assembly. “The victim was acquainted with acquainted with
the most disorderly contingent in the neighborhood where he lived,”
Piotrovsky told the students. “On September 9, he and his brother
and one more acquaintance were drinking alcoholic beverages in the
apartment he rented. Then he young man went to the store near the Metro
station, where he met acquaintances who attacked him… The identities
of those people have been established and more evidence is being
gathered now.” He added that it is hard for the police to guarantee
the safety of students who live away from campus, not in dormitories.

The students began to object, but they were politely led out of the
building at that point. A spontaneous action emerged in the courtyard
of the building and the students marched along Nevsky Prospekt to
Smolny Palace, the city governor’s residence on the Square of the
Proletariat Dictatorship, where they were dissuaded from continuing
by the police. The city prosecutor’s office refused to confirm that
the murder had been solved. A spokesman there said that “so far,
no one has been charged and no one has been taken into custody in
the case.” Kommersant has determined that the suspects in the case
are the victim’s Armenian former girlfriend and her new friend,
a Chechen national. They have in fact been taken into custody, but
for living in the city without registration.