- MOSCOW -- The man who told
the world exactly how wealthy Russia's super-rich are and exactly what
oligarchs spend their millions on has been shot dead in Moscow in a murder
that has all the hallmarks of a contract killing.
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- Pavel Klebnikov, the chief editor of the Russian edition
of Forbes magazine, was shot at point- blank range in a suburb of northern
Moscow near the city's botanical gardens at around 10pm last night. He
died later in an ambulance having taken four bullets in the chest.
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- Klebnikov, 41, a US citizen born in New York, was descended
from White Russian emigres who fled the country when Communists seized
power.
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- He had made powerful enemies writing a damning book about
Boris Berezovsky, the tycoon who has exiled himself in the UK, and another
about a Chechen rebel field commander called Khoj-Akhmed Nukaev.
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- Klebnikov alleged that Mr Berezovsky, with $620m (£330m)
to his name, was involved in the criminal underworld and became embroiled
in a protracted court case that ended in an out-of-court settlement and
an apology from Forbes.
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- Some said that his book about Mr Berezovsky - Godfather
of the Kremlin; The Decline of Russia in the Age of Gangster Capitalism
- was anti-Semitic in tone and overly critical of the tycoon at the expense
of other key characters such as Russia's former president Boris Yeltsin.
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- In April of this year, Klebnikov ruffled feathers among
Russia's super-rich when he launched the first Russian language edition
of Forbes magazine, the so-called capitalist's handbook. A month later
he put even more noses out of joint when the magazine published a detailed
list of Russia's 100 wealthiest people, detailing exactly what assets they
held and how they had made their money. Russia's elite was unimpressed.
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- One businessman who preferred not to be named told daily
Vedemosti that he was furious with Klebnikov. "They couldn't have
published this list at a worst place at a worse time," he told the
newspaper.
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- "In our country, any discussion of personal wealth
results in nothing but an increase in my blood pressure."
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- Unnamed sources accused Klebnikov and his colleagues
of vastly over-estimating their wealth and claimed that Forbes' exercise
was unseemly.
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- Some businessmen were irritated that their names were
linked by association with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man and
number one on Forbes' list.
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- They said the fact that Mr Khodorkovsky was in jail on
fraud and embezzlement charges might reflect badly on them.
-
- Others took exception to the fact that Klebnikov's list
included at least nine Jews and worried that they would be targeted by
anti-Semites.
-
- Many of Russia's super-rich prefer to keep information
about their real worth secret, not least to avoid the clutches of Russia's
increasingly conscientious tax police.
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- But Klebnikov, it seems, has now paid the ultimate price
for ignoring these warnings.
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- "Russia is sick with envy .... Russia will (only)
flourish when each Russian citizen learns to value his neighbour's success,"
Klebnikov wrote.
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- An ardent pro-capitalist, he believed that the new Russia
had a bright future ahead.
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- "Today Russia is on the threshold of a new era,"
he wrote grandly in Forbes' first Russian edition.
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- "I am convinced that we will become the witnesses
of a great renaissance in Russian society. Unprecedented opportunities
are opening up before the (Russian) business world and new problems at
the same time."
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- In a country where many in the media appear to be in
the pockets of some of the country's super rich businessmen Klebnikov promised
that Forbes would remain steadfastly independent of influence.
-
- In an overt nod to the magazine's original founder BC
Forbes, he reminded the readers that money wasn't everything and that "God,
moral values and a sense of citizenship" were also important.
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- Klebnikov studied at the University of Berkeley in California
and at the London School of Economics where he obtained a Phd in 1991.
Police are investigating the killing.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=539845
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