The murder in Moscow of a coronavirus vaccine developer is not related to Sputnik V, the reason is much more banal. 48-year-old virologist Botikov celebrated the first day of spring in an unusual company, for which he paid the price.
Andrey Botikov report about the details of the incident, the Russian media, on the evening of March 1, invited 29-year-old Alexei Zmanovsky to his apartment on Rogov Street in Moscow. The latter is known in certain circles as a model providing intimate gay services.
And everything would be fine, such leisure is a personal matter for everyone, if the meeting had not ended tragically. From about 10:20 p.m. to 11:50 p.m. Moscow time, Alexei worked off the fee by providing intimate services to the owner. But then a conflict arose between the men, and Zmanovsky, distinguished by impressive dimensions (52nd clothing size and height 180 cm), strangled the slender scientist.
The initial version of the investigation – the conflict broke out due to the fact that Botikov was dissatisfied with the “type and quantity” of the services rendered to him. On this basis, according to investigators, the model had a “criminal intent to kill.”
Zmanovsky, according to the version, “foreseeing the possibility of the onset of socially dangerous consequences of his actions and even wishing for their onset, approached the virologist from behind, grabbed his neck with his left hand and pressed his forearm on Botikov’s throat until he stopped showing signs of life.”
The brutal murder of a reputable virologist is revealed in hot pursuit. Zmanovsky fled the scene of the crime, but the very next day in the evening, law enforcement officers who opened a criminal case on the fact of domestic murder (part 1 of article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), established the address of the model from advertising on specialized sites and detained the criminal.
He has already been charged, and during interrogation Zmanovsky admitted his guilt. According to investigators, this is not the first time he has committed violent crimes. The killer, by decision of the Khoroshevsky court of Moscow on March 3, was arrested until May 2.
The press service of the National Research Center (NRC) of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after Gamaleya, where Mr. Botikov worked, told Kommersant that she did not comment on the circumstances of his death.
As colleagues of the murdered Botikov testify, he lived a bright and eventful scientific life. He is the author of about 15 patented discoveries in the field of virology, including, for example, a device for express analysis of the presence of a given object in a complex biological environment and a diagnostic test system for detecting avian influenza virus. A well-known scientist discovered a strain of hybrid cultured mouse cells mus. musculus – 4f11, studied cyclohexaneoxycarbonyl dipeptide and its antiviral activity against hepatitis C virus.
In the photo above, Alexei Zmanovsky (from the personal archive).
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