A forensic investigator at the scene of the crime
(Photo by News.ru)
Moscow -- Zalimkhan Magomedov, President of the non-profit National Oil Institute Foundation, was shot dead yesterday, the victim of an apparent contract killing. According to the Associated Press article published in the Houston Chronicle: "The little-known Moscow-based company works with companies and government structures to develop small and medium-sized companies in the oil and gas industry". Mr. Magomedov, a native of the Caucasian Russian republic of Dagestan, is the latest victim of a wave of business-related violence in Russia.
On September 14, Zentrobank Vice President Andrei Kozlov was gunned down outside the Spartak indoor soccer arena in Moscow. Prosecutors believe that the killing was motivated by Kozlov's aggressive fight against money laundering in the banking sector. Three Ukrainian men have been caught in connection with the crime, but the suspects insist that they don't know who ultimately ordered the hit and that they were paid through a shadowy intermediary.
On September 30, Enver Ziganshin, the chief engineer for BP PLC's Russian gas unit OAO Rusia Petroleum, was shot to death in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. On October 7, Anna Politovskaya, a reporter for the Novaya Gazeta opposition newspaper, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building. Her killing prompted international condemnation of the Russian government for failing to protect journalists.
On October 10 Alexander Plokhin, a Moscow branch director for one of Russia's largest retail banks, was fatally wounded by a gunshot to the head. The next day, Furtanbek Akhidov, a successful Chechen businessman working in Moscow, was gunned down in the courtyard of his apartment complex.
On October 19, Dimitry Fotianov, the Mayor of the Far Eastern city of Dalnegorsk and a member of Putin's United Russia Party, was assassinated near his campaign office. Mr. Fotianov's attackers shot him multiple times with Kalashnikov assault rifles. Local police found the murder weapons in a minivan parked near the offices of a local newspaper. Police have detained three suspects in connection with the murder. Mr. Fotianov's opponent, Alexander Terebilov, has denied any involvement in the killing and accepted the Primorsky Kray Electoral Council's decision to postpone mayoral elections until March 2007.
