- MOSCOW -- Russia's jittery
foreign press corps was plunged into mourning yesterday for the second
time in as many weeks after another foreign journalist was murdered in
Moscow.
-
- The killing of Paila Peloyan, the Armenian editor of
the Russian-language monthly, Armenian Lane, comes barely a week after
Paul Klebnikov, the US editor of the Russian version of Forbes magazine,
was gunned down in cold blood. Nobody has been arrested for his murder.
-
- Mr Peloyan's body was found dumped by the side of the
city's outer ring road or MKAD far from the city centre on Saturday morning.
-
- He had multiple stab wounds in the chest and had been
savagely beaten; his skull was cracked and his face covered in blood and
bruises.
-
- Information about his last movements is sketchy, though
he is known to have died between two and three o'clock on Saturday morning
and his body lay undiscovered for at least four hours.
-
- Investigators say they have crawled over the crime scene
in order to try to find out what happened and prosecutors have opened a
criminal case into the killing.
-
- They are not ruling out the possibility that Mr Peloyan
was murdered because of his professional activity.
-
- In contrast to the late Mr Klebnikov, however, Mr Peloyan's
work appears relatively uncontroversial. While the dead American journalist
made waves by publicising the names of Russia's wealthiest people and delving
into their often insalubrious financial affairs, Mr Peloyan's magazine
was an arts publication.
-
- Moscow's Armenian diaspora, Armenian Lanecarried features
about literature, the arts and history and included prose and poetry from
Armenian writers. Nobody was answering the phones at the magazine's Moscow
office yesterday.
-
- That Mr Peloyan's murder comes so soon after that of
Mr Klebnikov is likely to unsettle foreign and Russian journalists alike.
Mr Klebnikov was killed in a drive-by shooting by at least two gunmen and
died in a hail of bullets just yards from his office. His murder had all
the hallmarks of a contract killing.
-
- An online news site, the Russia Journal, spoke yesterday
of "an undeclared war against media representatives" and claimed
that Russian and foreign journalists had become an endangered species in
Moscow.
-
- It said: "These two senseless killings have once
again put the issue of journalists' safety in Russia back on the agenda
and raised well-founded concerns among representatives of the fourth estate.
-
- "This is not because killing journalists is a rarity
in Moscow or in Russia at large but two murders of journalists in less
than 10 days in a city that is not at war is something unusual, even by
Russian standards." The Russian media itself made far less of Mr Peloyan's
murder, possibly because as an Armenian hailing from a part of the former
Soviet Union once ruled by the Russians, he would not be considered a bona
fide foreigner like Mr Klebnikov.
-
- It is estimated that two million Armenians live in Russia
and the two countries have a close relationship going back hundreds of
years. Officials at the Armenian embassy in Moscow said that they were
profoundly shocked by Mr Peloyan's murder. "Naturally we learnt of
this information with great regret," Armen Gevondyan, the embassy
press secretary, told Interfax news agency.
-
- "We are taking all the measures we can together
with Russia's law enforcement authorities to ascertain the circumstances
of Mr Peloyan's death." Mr Peloyan is the 16th journalist to be murdered
in Russia since 2000 when Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency. The US-based
Committee to Protect Journalists says the country is one of the deadliest
places to be a reporter. It addressed an open letter to Mr Putin after
Mr Klebnikov's killing, complaining about "the climate of lawlessness
and impunity".
-
- "Cases [of journalists being killed] have not been
properly investigated or prosecuted, a testament to the ongoing lawlessness
in Russia and your failure to reform the country's weak and politicised
criminal justice system," it said.
-
- JOURNALISTS MURDERED IN RUSSIA
-
- Paul Klebnikov, editor of 'Forbes' magazine (Russian
edition)
- Age: 41
- Died: 9 July 2004
- Gunned down from passing car while leaving office in
Moscow. Had exposed workings of the country's shadowy billionaires
-
- Aleksei Sidorov, editor-in-chief of 'Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye'
- Age: 31
- Died: 9 October 2003
- Stabbed several times in the chest by unidentified assailant
outside home. Newspaper known for investigative reporting on organised
crime, government corruption and shady corporate deals
-
- Valery Ivanov, editor-in-chief of 'Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye'
- Age: 32
- Died: 29 April 2002
- Shot eight times in head at point-blank range by assassin
using a pistol with a silencer. Murdered in Togliatti after paper exposed
controversial business deals linked to organised crime and government corruption
-
- Natalya Skryl, business reporter, 'Nashe Vremya'
- Age: 29
- Died: 9 March 2002
- The reporter was repeatedly struck on the head while
returning home in Rostov-on-Don late at night. She was investigating a
struggle for the control of Tagmet, a local metallurgical plant. Just before
her death, Ms Skryl told colleagues that she had obtained sensitive information
about the story and was planning to publish it
-
- Eduard Markevich, editor and publisher of 'Novy Reft'
- Age: 29
- Died: 18 September 2001
- Shot in the back. The paper, in the Sverdlovsk region,
often criticised local officials. Mr Markevich received threatening calls
before the fatal attack
-
- Igor Domnikov, reporter and special projects editor of
'Novaya Gazeta'
- Age: 42
- Died: 16 July 2000
- Died in Moscow two months after being attacked by an
unidentified assailant and left lying in pool of blood in the entryway
of his apartment building. His colleagues and police were initially certain
the attack was related to his professional activity or that of the newspaper.
It was also believed for a while that the assailant mistook Mr Domnikov
for a Novaya Gazeta investigative reporter, Oleg Sultanov, who lived in
the same building. Mr Sultanov claimed to have received threats from the
Federal Security Service for reporting on corruption in the Russian oil
industry
-
- Natalya Skryl, business reporter, 'Nashe Vremya'
- Age: 29
- Died: 9 March 2002
- The reporter was repeatedly struck on the head while
returning home in Rostov-on-Don late at night. She was investigating a
struggle for the control of Tagmet, a local metallurgical plant. Just before
her death, Ms Skryl told colleagues that she had obtained sensitive information
about the story and was planning to publish it
-
- Eduard Markevich, editor and publisher of 'Novy Reft'
- Age: 29
- Died: 18 September 2001
- Shot in the back. The paper, in the Sverdlovsk region,
often criticised local officials. Mr Markevich received threatening calls
before the fatal attack
-
- Igor Domnikov, reporter and special projects editor of
- 'Novaya Gazeta'
- Age: 42
- Died: 16 July 2000
- Died in Moscow two months after being attacked by an
unidentified assailant and left lying in pool of blood in the entryway
of his apartment building. His colleagues and police were initially certain
the attack was related to his professional activity or that of the newspaper.
It was also believed for a while that the assailant mistook Mr Domnikov
for a Novaya Gazeta investigative reporter, Oleg Sultanov, who lived in
the same building. Mr Sultanov claimed to have received threats from the
Federal Security Service for reporting on corruption in the Russian oil
industry
- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=542365
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