Posted on 07/12/2004 12:01:03 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
MOSCOW -- It was the kind of contract killing Paul Klebnikov had written about many times while covering Moscow's often nasty convergence of politics, commerce and crime. But this time, the Forbes Russia editor-in-chief was the victim.
As Mr. Klebnikov left his office Friday night and headed toward a nearby metro station, a black Lada sedan approached. Quickly closing the distance, the car's windows were rolled down and one, perhaps two, guns emerged. Mr. Klebnikov was shot four times and died of chest wounds on the way to the hospital.
Yesterday, as friends held a private funeral service for the 41-year-old, Reporters Without Borders said it was shocked by the killing and said it illustrates the "great danger" journalists face working in Russia. The Paris-based organization noted that five journalists were killed in the country last year, and none of the slayings have been solved.
Mr. Klebnikov likely made some very powerful enemies during his 15 years of reporting on the country. He specialized in exposing the links between big business -- primarily the so-called oligarchs -- and the Russian mafia. In 2000, he published the book Godfather of the Kremlin: The Decline of Russia in the Age of Gangster Capitalism, which examined the rise of billionaire tycoon Boris Berezovsky, whom he described as a "powerful gangland boss."
Mr. Berezovsky later fled Russia, saying he was persecuted by President Vladimir Putin, and was granted political asylum in Britain. Saturday, the state-run RIA Novosti wire service quoted him as saying that he didn't know who killed Mr. Klebnikov, but that the journalist might have angered someone with his reporting.
"Unfortunately, his way of reporting the facts was very arbitrary," Mr. Berezovsky said. "He invented much. It seems that he seriously upset someone."
While the book focused on Mr. Berezovsky, it spared no one, no matter how powerful. "Russia was a gangster state . . . and its political system nothing more than a government of organized crime," he wrote of the years Boris Yeltsin was president.
A second book was published last year -- Conversation With a Barbarian, about Chechen separatist leader Khozh Akhmed Nukhayev.
"Paul was a superb reporter -- courageous, energetic, ever curious," Forbes president and chief executive Steve Forbes said in a statement. "He knew Russia well. It was a country he loved deeply."
Mr. Klebnikov, a New-York-born son of Russian immigrants, also made waves this year with the launch of Forbes magazine's first-ever Russian edition. The magazine upset many in the country's business elite by publishing a list of Russia's 100 wealthiest people -- a list that included 36 billionaires.
The list was seen as highly sensitive because the richest of the rich are often viewed in Russia as having stolen from the state during the chaos after the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to one radio report yesterday, Mr. Klebnikov received death threats after the list was published.
"He was digging in a minefield" by looking into the wealth of the oligarchs, said Igor Yakovenko, general-secretary of Russia's Union of Journalists. "In America, this would be a normal thing. In Russia, it is lethally dangerous, a death sentence."
However, a colleague who spoke to him shortly before his death said Mr. Klebnikov didn't seem to know specifically who would have wanted him dead.
Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov said on the weekend that he was taking personal control of the investigation. His office described Mr. Klebnikov's slaying as a contract killing and called the case "a matter of extreme importance."
Seems Russia has the same type of 'accidents' we have here in the US for the politically inconvenient.
ping!
Russian Forbes Editor Died in Hospital Elevator — Witness
Created: 12.07.2004 14:29 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 19:39 MSK, 3 hours 38 minutes ago
MosNews
The editor of the Russian version of Forbes magazine, Paul Klebnikov, shot on Friday, died in a hospital elevator, his colleague Mikhail Fishman, who accompanied Klebnikov to the hospital, told MosNews on Monday.
The elevator got stuck after physicians entered with Klebnikov on the stretcher, he said. The personnel were searching for a technician for ten minutes. After the elevator had opened, a physician told Fishman that Klebnikov was dead. Later, a surgeon who was in charge of the operation said that they were, in any case, unable to help Klebnikov because his wounds had been too grave, Fishman said. ...
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/07/12/klebnikov.shtml
Shades of Ron Brown.
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