Russian ex-cop suspected of raping, killing 25 women

 A Siberian court has sanctioned detention of a former police officer suspected to have sexually assaulted and killed 25 women.

The 48-year-old man has been formally accused of murdering three women. The other deaths, which occurred between 1994 and 2000, are currently being investigated, an Angarsk city court said in a press release.

The man, who resigned from the police force in 1998, was held in Vladivostok city.

The women were aged between 19 and 28, and most of them were believed to be drunk at the time he sexually assaulted and killed them, said police.