MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian television journalist who was once held in rebel
captivity in Russia's troubled Chechnya region has been gunned down in Moscow,
Interfax news agency has quoted a source in the city police as saying.
It said an unidentified man fired two shots at Alikhan Guliyev, who worked for
Russia's TVTs channel, as the reporter was entering his apartment in northern
Moscow on Friday evening.
A Moscow police source confirmed a murder had taken place on Moscow's Startovaya
Street but said he could not confirm whether the victim was the TVTs reporter.
"Yes, there was a murder," the source told Reuters. "We have yet to identify him
and investigation is underway."
TVTs, a local Moscow channel, was unavailable for comment.
Several journalists are killed each year in Russia, many investigating corruption,
while murders of businessmen and political figures have become commonplace since
the fall of Soviet rule in 1991 sparked cut- throat competition for control of
Russia's massive resources and industry.
Interfax said Guliyev specialised in news coverage from the Northern Caucasus
region, plagued by violence and corruption. Russian forces have been battling
rebels in mainly Muslim Chechnya on and off for the past decade.
In one of the most prominent cases in recent years, an investigative journalist
with a Moscow tabloid daily who was probing corruption in Russia's armed forces
was blown up by a booby-trapped briefcase in 1994.
A journalist of TV broadcasting company TVS shot down in Moscow
On Friday, in the evening in Moscow was comitted the murder of Ingush journalist
Alikhan Guliyev, who worked for the TV broadcasting company TVS, reports RIAN
agency.
As the agency's source in the GUVD of Moscow reported, Guliyev was killed by two
shots from a Makarov pistol at 21st on the Startovaya street. Incident occurred
approximately at 21:20. [10:20 PM]
According to gazeta.Ru data, Guliyev had just returned from a store and was opening
the doors of his apartment, when some unknowns ran up to him and shoot two shots
in his back from the pistol.
According to some data, the Makarov pistol with sawn off numbers was left on the
spot of crime. It is assumed that a group of persons, who committed this murder,
hid in a VAZ-2108 car of red color.
In the vicinity, complex of operational measures - the Vulcan plan is being conducted,
around the city it was declared the Interception plan. On the fact of this felony,
a criminal case under article 105 UK RF (intentional murder) has been opened.
It's being conducted by the Losinoostrovskaya inter-district procuratorship.
Previously Guliyev worked for the Ingush TV, then in the Kommersant publishing
house. Several times he was a candidate in the elections for the MP of Ingushetia.
He many times came with missions to Chechnya, and for a while he was a hostage,
agency added. At the end of March, there was an assasination attempt on Guliyev
- his vehicle was fired at, near the building of the Supreme Court of Ingushetia.
Furthermore, in this year, on journalist's complaint, the Supreme Court of the
republic had removed from the registration of presidential candidates of Ingushetia,
the head of Ingush MVD Khamzat Gutseriyev. Guliyev accused him of breaking
the rules of pre-election agitation and rules of financing of the pre-election
campaign.