Fragments of a bloody shirt helped find Talkov's killer

ST. PETERSBURG, July 23. Fragments of the bloody shirt of singer Igor Talkov's concert director Valery Shlyafman helped establish his guilt in the murder of the performer in St. Petersburg in the fall of 1991, the city's main department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported.
The Petrogradsky District Court of St. Petersburg held a preliminary hearing on Tuesday in the criminal case of Talkov's murder, in which Shlyafman is a defendant.

“The department carried out a large amount of investigative work. Its employees interrogated more than 50 witnesses throughout Russia, including pop artists, Yubileiny staff and police officers who were at the scene of the incident. They also interrogated specialists who carried out examinations in this case with 1991 to 1992. One of them had cutouts from Shlyafman’s shirt stained with blood, and they helped identify the culprit of the murder,” the report says.

Shlyafman is accused of committing crimes under Part 2 of Article 15 – paragraph “d” of Article 102 (attempted premeditated murder under aggravating circumstances, committed in a manner dangerous to the lives of many people) of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR , as well as paragraph “e” of Article 102 (premeditated murder under aggravating circumstances, committed in a manner dangerous to the lives of many people) of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.

The investigation established that in October 1991, during a conflict that arose behind the scenes of the Yubileiny Sports Palace between the accused and a representative of one of the artists, Igor Malakhov, Shlyafman, while trying to shoot Malakhov, mortally wounded Talkov.
Shlyafman fled to Israel in 1992, he was brought in as a defendant in absentia, and in January 2022, the Petrogradsky District Court of St. Petersburg chose a preventive measure in absentia in the form of detention.
All investigative actions have been completed in the criminal case, which can be carried out in the absence of the accused. The investigative body has also taken exhaustive measures to search for and extradite Shlyafman. However, there is no real possibility of his participation in the criminal process. The Prosecutor General's Office informed that these circumstances are an exceptional case that allows the trial to be held in the absence of the accused.