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It's a wild world out there!
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Posted by: Castlestormer

What do you guys think about this?

_______________________________________________
Friday, Jul. 25, 2003. Page 3

Court Convicts 4 in Australian's Murder

By Robin Munro
Staff Writer

A Moscow region court has convicted two men and two woman for the murder of an Australian national whose bound and gagged body was found at a hotel near Sheremetyevo Airport in October.

The Khimki court on Wednesday sentenced Georgian natives Gia Kukhalashvili, 39, and Otari Khoneridze, 30, each to 13 years in prison for organizing and carrying out the murder of Peter Hughes. The 55-year-old former Catholic school principal was visiting his Russian fiancee, whom he met over the Internet.

Accomplices Natalya Kristich, 25, a Ukrainian citizen, and Irina Nogina, 33, a Russian, received four-year prison sentences for their role in the Oct. 7 attack at the Sheremetyevo-2 Hotel.

All four admitted their guilt after being confronted with hotel security video recordings showing then entering and leaving Hughes' fifth-floor room, said Colonel Sergei Alexeyev, head of the Sheremetyevo-2 Hotel's police department.

Hughes, who spoke no Russian, met Kristich and Nogina, who spoke little English, in the hotel a few days before his death, Alexeyev said.

"It was a chance acquaintance," he said.

On the eve of his death, Hughes and his fiancee had a quarrel, and Hughes spent the evening talking to the two women in the bar, Alexeyev said.

"He invited the two women to the room, and they invited the two men," he said. "The women opened the door while he was in the bathroom, and the men slipped in. It all happened very quickly."

A maid found Hughes' body at 5:20 a.m. His nose was broken, in a sign of a struggle.

Hughes' fiancee, identified by Australian newspaper The Age as Angelica Ovcharova, 31, was not considered a suspect by police.

The four stole several hundred dollars and went to Moscow, unaware that Hughes had died, that their movements had been recorded on the security camera and that there was a police station in the hotel, Alexeyev said.

After learning of the death through the media, the women dyed their hair and the four made plans to leave the country. The police nabbed them Oct. 21 and, faced with the evidence against them, they quickly admitted their guilt, Alexeyev said.

Australian Embassy staff have been monitoring developments in the case and attended the court hearings. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra has informed the next of kin of the verdict, the embassy said Thursday.

Hughes, a resident of Bathurst in New South Wales, had three adult children from a previous marriage and was a Russian enthusiast whose English and history students nicknamed him "Mr. Russia."

"He made Russia the topic no matter what he was supposed to be teaching us," one of his students told The Australian last year.

Posted by: ConnerVT

Wrong place, wrong time, rotten luck.

It could of (and certainly does) happen in many places, all over the world, more frequently than we probably expect. Guy gets drunk in a place not his home, talks with strangers in a bar, and gets beaten and robbed. This time, they worked the guy over more than they thought. Only makes the news, because he's Austrailian, and it happened in Russia.

If he was from North Dakota, and it happened in Las Vegas, it wouldn't even had made page 12 of the supermarket sales flyer...

Posted by: ConnerVT

Here's an earlier article about this, while they were still looking for the suspects. The victim isn't treated as 'nicely' as he was in the later article.

Police say they know who killed Aussie in sex trap
By Eamonn Duff
October 20 2002

Moscow police are closing in on the killers of Australian teacher Peter Hughes, even though the suspects sabotaged his diary to cover their tracks.

The page for October 6, 2002 - the day the Bathurst schoolteacher was murdered in Moscow - was ripped out of his diary when police found it beside his body.

Investigators are convinced the killers tore it out because it contained clues about their identities.

An investigating officer said: "We would very much like to know what entries he had made in his diary on the day he died, but it seems the killers did not want us to see."

Police know the names of the suspects. Hotel security cameras captured two male criminals and two female prostitutes entering and leaving Hughes's hotel room at almost the same time he was murdered. Hughes had sex in his room shortly before his death.

"We know the killers' identities and expect to detain them very soon," the police investigator said.

"When they are interrogated, we'll figure out the role each one played."

Last week, The Sun-Herald revealed how Hughes lost his heart - and ultimately his life - to beautiful 31-year-old Russian Angelica Ovcharova, who offered herself as a bride on the internet.

Hypnotised by the picture she posted on a Russian website, the father-of-three flooded her with love letters. He then visited her in April and August, proposing to her with what turned out to be a fake diamond ring. When she was refused an Australian visa, Hughes headed to England and got a teaching job in Northamptonshire so it would be easier to fly to Moscow and see her at weekends.

But there was to be no happy ending. After returning to Moscow at the end of September, the couple had a row over a pre-nuptial agreement.

Hours later, his naked body was found strangled and gagged with his trousers on his hotel room floor. His attackers had stolen about $2,000.

Ms Ovcharova has been cleared of any wrongdoing, with police insisting: "We are 100 per cent sure she's not connected."

But while she and Hughes's family are still coming to terms with their loss, their pain will not be eased by revelations that have arisen from police investigations.

A year earlier, Hughes was involved with another Russian woman he visited in Russia with a view to marriage.

The diary reveals Hughes had become increasingly concerned about cash flow. On September 27, he wrote: "Angelica seems to need much money."

Ms Ovcharova celebrated her 32nd birthday last week without the man who promised her a ticket to a better life.

She said police had told her about Hughes having sex with the prostitutes, and that she had not been the first bride on his list. "I had no idea," she said.

"It is a shame that on October 6, I did not go with him to the hotel, because instead of ordering those girls, he would have been alive today."

This story was found at: smh.com.au

Posted by: ShermanAtlanta

You could replace the word Russia with Atlanta and no one would know the difference.
Sherman

Posted by: Khashyar

Hi guys...

Interesting articles...

I moved the threads that were discussing "whether it is safe in Russia" to a new thread of it's own so that topic could be discussed specifically and independently.

The new (continued) thread is here: http://www.russianmeetingplace.com/...d=2616#post2616

Khashyar

Posted by: Khashyar

It's sad story...

One of the morals of this unfortunate story is not to pick up prostitutes in a Russian bar and take them to your hotel room...

That's a dangerous thing to do...

(I think that many Russian prostitutes are involved with the Russian mafia.

Khashyar

Posted by: ConnerVT

As opposed to picking up prostitutes in a non-Russian bar?

Just kiddin', just kiddin...