Blogger Dmitry Puchkov, known under the pseudonym Goblin, said during a court hearing on Wednesday over the associate professor of the Department of History Oleg Sokolov, accused of the murder of graduate student Anastasia Yeshchenko, that the historian was being harassed. This was reported by the Izvestia correspondent from the courtroom on October 14.
Puchkov was invited to the court as a witness for the defense.
“I know about the persecution, and who organized it – I can’t point a finger,” the blogger said.
He called Sokolov an “emotional” person who “took a lot to heart.”
Puchkov noted that he had no hostile attitude towards the historian, but he was familiar with Yeshchenko, he saw her several times.
The witness said that he met the historian about four years ago. He added that Sokolov is “the creator of the reconstruction movement in the Russian Federation.”
The day before, Sokolov himself reported in court about the aggression on the part of Yeshchenko and that she was cheating on him with a “repeat offender lover” who was put on the federal wanted list by Interpol.
According to the historian, after his trip to France with children, the girl began to react aggressively to children, shouting and cursing.
On the eve of the Petrogradsky District Court of St. Petersburg, on November 26, the consideration of the claim for the protection of the honor and dignity of Sokolov was scheduled, the court’s file says. A preliminary hearing was held in court on Tuesday.
On October 12, Sokolov pleaded guilty to the murder of Yeshchenko. Earlier, a witness in the case, Ekaterina Przhigodzkaya, who was once in a relationship with Sokolov, told how he severely beat her. The historian himself accuses the woman of lying.