Prosecutor`s office in Russian city of Khabarovsk has finished investigating the case of a U.S. serviceman accused of killing a Russian relative of his wife and has handed it over to a court, Regnum news agency reports.

The U.S. Embassy has identified the suspect as Christopher Garner, an active-duty enlisted soldier based at Fort Bragg, N.C. The embassy did not give his rank. He was on leave when the slaying took place.

29-year-old Christopher Garner was charged with strangling his wife’s uncle in September in Khabarovsk and then dumping his body in a nearby village, regional prosecutors said.

The investigation established that on September 6, 2006, during a quarrel between Garner`s wife Svetlana and her uncle the suspect stifled the latter by a self-made loop. After that he and his wife put the body in a bag and took out of the city by a taxi, where they threw it away.

On September 8, 2006, the Garners flew to Moscow, where the next day they were arrested and taken back to Khabarovsk. The criminal case has been taken to court of Industrialny District Court of Khabarovsk.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow could not confirm the exact stage the case was at but confirmed that Garner has been kept in a detention facility since his arrest pending trial.

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