Editor of Russian edition of
Forbes Magazine killed in Moscow
Reporters Without Borders
said today it was "shocked" at the murder of American
journalist Paul Khlebnikov in a Moscow street on 9 July
and called for government action to protect journalists
in a country where it said they were "in great danger."
Khlebnikov, 41, editor
of the new Russian edition of the US business magazine
Forbes, was hit four times by gunmen who attacked him as
he left his office. He died on his way to hospital.
"Police think he was
probably killed because of his work," said a spokeswoman
for the Moscow prosecutor's office. A car belonging to
the killers was found today.
Reporters Without
Borders said that since Khlebnikov was an investigative
journalist, he may have been killed for that reason. It
noted that five journalists had been murdered in Russia
last year and that official investigations had not yet
discovered why they were killed. It called on the police
to do everything possible to quickly arrest Khlebnikov's
murderers.
The journalist, who
founded the Russian edition of the magazine in April,
had published a list of the richest people in Russia.
The publisher of the Russian edition, Leonid Bershidsky,
told Reuters news agency that after 17 years of
investigative journalism, "he probably had plenty of
enemies."
Khlebnikov had written
about Russian billionaire businessman Boris Berezovsky
in 1996 and wrote a book about him in 2000 called
"Godfather of the Kremlin" which said he had ties with
the Chechen mafia and had smuggled hundreds of millions
of dollars out of the country.
Berezovsky told
journalists after the murder that Khlebnikov had
reported things inaccurately, which had probably
strongly displeased someone.
