The two men had spent four years in the remote Russian Bellingshausen station on King George Island. At the facility, you can read or read or apparently stab people. Police said that Savitsky had become enraged that Beloguzov “kept telling his colleague the endings of books before he read them”.
Beloguzov had to be evacuated to Chile for medical treatment for his chest wound. Savitsky was deported to St. Petersburg for prosecution. It is an interesting jurisdictional question given the location in Antarctica where there is no legal authority.
Under the 53-nation Antarctic Treaty, workers accused of serious crimes at a research base are subject to the jurisdiction of their home country. The record as the first accused murderer may run into difficulty with a 1996 case when an American cook attacked a co-worker with a hammer at McMurdo Station. F.B.I. agents investigated the matter while the cook was confined to a hut.