Viktoria Basakovskaya was allegedly strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend in Siberia, Russia. (Screen capture via YouTube)
A police officer in Novosibirsk, Russia has confessed to killing his missing ex-girlfriend, a 24-year-old trans woman, after leading the charge to find her.
The body of Viktoria Basakovskaya was found in the southern village of Burmistrovo and showed signs of strangulation, local investigators said Tuesday (October 13).
Officials said that an officer identified as Denis K, 20, has admitted strangling Basakovskaya after an argument curdled into violence on October. He then dragged her body into the village’s outskirts.
An unnamed law enforcement source told news outlet ngs.ru that the officer was the victim’s ex-boyfriend, and strangled her “out of jealousy”.
“During the conflict, the suspect strangled his acquaintance, after which he took his body outside the village and hid it,” said Anastasia Kuleshova, a senior assistant to the head of the Investigative Directorate, working for the ICR in the Novosibirsk region.
Cop allegedly strangled his trans girlfriend. Then he masqueraded as her avenger.
After the killing, Denis was the first to report that Basakovskaya was missing.
He went on to canvas the neighbourhood with flyers and cooperated with investigators trying to track her down. According to reports, he ultimately cracked and admitted to killing her, later leading officers to her body.
The city’s police department swiftly terminated his employment.
Basakovskaya’s death comes at a truly perilous time for LGBT+ Russians, as lawmakers have ratcheted up their barbed attacks against a community long eroded by vicious policy.
President Vladimir Putin’s populist campaigns often single out the LGBT+ community for vitriol, stirring up hatred among his most loyal support bloc, the Russian Orthodox Church.
With his brand of social conservatism and nostalgia for Soviet Russia , Putin has alarmed top LGBT+ rights groups outside of Russia with the ways he is imperilling queer young people.
Several planks of his campaign for a recent constitutional referendum were potently anti-LGBT+, from a threat to effectively erase trans people from existence to a constitutional ban on marriage equality.
These plots constellate around the bedrock of his anti-LGBT+ policy plans – a ban on so-called “gay propaganda” that has for years muted the voices of thousands of queer Russians.