Gruesome! Two Russian men killed a girl, cooked and ate her body (Photo)

Two Russian men cooked and ate a 16-year-old girl after murdering her in the bath - and their trial was dramatically halted when a juror fainted after viewing graphic photos of the crime scene.

The sickening case of Karina Barduchian came to light yesterday, with horrifying testimony from fellow houseguest Ekaterina Zinovyeva at a St Petersburg court.

Maxim Golovatskikh, 20, and Yury Mozhnov, also 20, are accused of drowning Miss Barduchian in the bathroom before hacking her body to pieces, cutting off chunks of flesh which they then boiled with potatoes as part of a traditional meat-and-potato stew.

The macabre incident happened in January 2009, Ms Zinovyeva told the court yesterday. She said she had been at a small party at the apartment where Mr Golovatskikh was living with his girlfriend, Miss Barduchian.

"I went to sleep and they went into the bathroom," she told the court. "I heard some splashing sounds but thought nothing of it. When I woke up in the night and wanted to go to the toilet, Yury stopped me and sent me back to bed.

"They had joked earlier that they might kill Karina but I didn't take them seriously."

When Ms Zinovyeva returned home from work the next day, the pair offered her some of their meat-and-potato stew for dinner - which she duly ate.

Prosecutor Andrei Lavrenko said: "The victim's body was dismembered, with some parts eaten by the suspects and their houseguests and others thrown into the rubbish."

Deputy head of the St Petersburg criminal investigations department Sergei Andreyev said the pair claimed they were so hungry - and so drunk - that they had resorted to cannibalism.

Mr Golovatskikh is the lead singer in a local pop band. The victim's mother opposed her daughter's relationship with him and said her life had been destroyed by the killing - adding that she could not believe her daughter had died in such a horrific way.

The trial will resume later this week.