A 21-year-old man has been arrested by police for
allegedly vandalising a grave and raping the newly-buried
corpse of a woman.
Police in Monchegorsk, are looking into the allegations.
Police sources in Monchegorsk, Russia, who spoke to
mirror.co.uk said the 21-year-old in question opened the
coffin of a 39-year-old woman, in the far north region of
Murmansk.
The man whose name has not been given out, is said to be
from the neighbouring region of Arkhangelsk. Officials say a
criminal case has been opened under an article of the
Russian criminal code on desecration of the dead and their
burial places.
Under the law, the maximum punishment would be three
months in prison, or a fine of up to N125,000. Meanwhile,
the crime is the second case of a sexual attack on a dead
woman in the north of Russia this year.
In the first case which took place in the Komi Republic, two
men were jailed for raping the body of a young woman in
February. Monchegorsk was established by Stalin as a
nickel and copper mining town and has a population of
about 45,000.
The sexual attraction or involvement in sexual acts with
corpses is called necrophilia or thanatophilia. It is otherwise
known by the American Psychiatric association as
paraphilia. The term was first used in 1850 at a lecture by
Belgian alienist Joseph Guislain.
