In Moscow, Top Journalist Knifed to Death

NY Sun ^ | October 17 2006 | SEBASTIAN ALISON

[jmc1969]

The business chief of Russian news agency Itar-Tass, Anatoly Voronin, was killed on Sunday night in his apartment in central Moscow, the agency reported. Death was the result of multiple knife wounds, according to police, Itar-Tass reported. Several theories are being investigated, the agency said.

The body of 55-year-old Voronin was found at his home by his driver, the news agency said. He had worked at the agency for 23 years. His death is the latest in a spate of high-profile killings in Russia in little over a month.

The journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of President Putin, was shot in the entranceway of her apartment building on October 7. Leaders from around the world including President Bush called on the Russian government to carry out a thorough investigation to find her killers. No arrests have yet been made.

[theFIRMbss]

>Not a good sign as world events are going

There's no way to know.
The last dead "journalist" there
turned out to have ties

to terrorist groups.
If Putin is cutting down
on fake reporters

more power to him.
In fact, it's just too bad we
can't get tough with scum.

[GarySpFc]

Title says "journalist".

Check out Russian newspapers in English and you will clearly see he was not a journalist, but a business manager. Now those who hate are going to put the negative spin on everything Russian.

[GarySpFc]

Since you are there, please explain to us what people in your country think when you see journalist critics, and banking officials being murdered left and right. To me it would seem that someone is attempting to influence control of money, and media. Two essential things for any socialist/communist/fascist revival...

Firstly, there were 29 journalists mudered under Yeltsin, and 12 under Putin, but then it is easy for you to call Putin KGB. That said, here is an article from today's Moscow Times.

3 Suspects Arrested in Kozlov Killing
By David Nowak, Staff Writer


Three suspects thought to have killed Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Andrei Kozlov have been arrested, a Moscow City Court spokeswoman said Monday.

The arrests were ordered by the Basmanny District Court, the city court spokeswoman, Anna Usachyova, said. The district court is overseen by the city court.

Usachyova declined to name those who had been arrested or to give any information about where or when the arrests took place.

Also Monday, the Prosecutor General's Office announced it had identified the people who are thought to have ordered the killing last month.

The announcement was posted on the Prosecutor General's Office web site.

The web site gave no details about the people behind the killing or whether they had been arrested. It also promised to punish anyone who leaked information about the ongoing investigation.

"At the present time, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Interior Ministry are conducting an investigation to determine the sources of a leak about the tactics of a criminal investigation that under current law are considered a state secret," the web site said.

Police have conducted a reenactment of the killing at the Spartak sports complex in northeastern Moscow, the complex's chief of security said last week.

My note, actually the suspects have been named in another newspaper.

[GarySpFc]

I missed posting part of the article. Here is the rest.

Viktor Paptov, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office, declined to comment Monday on the case. Interior Ministry spokesman Pavel Klimovsky refused to discuss the leaks in question or what punishment they would entail.

Kozlov and his driver, Alexander Semyonov, were gunned down by two assailants on Sept. 14 as Kozlov was exiting the Spartak sports complex.

Kozlov spearheaded the government's efforts to clean up the banking sector and had put dozens of banks out of business during inquiries into money laundering.

Prosecutors were able to narrow the scope of their investigation to banks that Kozlov had dealt with two months before his death, Kommersant reported Monday, citing a source close to the investigation.

While it is unclear what may have prompted prosecutors to limit their investigation, it is believed that the suspects, all thought to be Ukrainian, were first hired in July to trail Kozlov. Kozlov was reported to have been under surveillance because he ignored phone calls from unidentified associates.

Kommersant gave the names of the three Ukrainian suspects as Alexander Belokopytov, Maxim Proglyad and Alexei Polovinkin and said they had been detained last week.

Proglyad and Polovinkin shot Kozlov and his driver while Belokopytov helped them escape, the paper said. The two shooters turned themselves in, saying they had been followed in the days after the attack and feared for their lives.

Proglyad and Polovinkin pointed police toward Belokopytov, who had fled to Stavropol to stay with friends.

Proglyad and Polovinkin apparently were unaware until shortly before Kozlov's death that they were supposed to kill him.

The two men were reported to have been hiding near the sports complex, waiting for Kozlov to wrap up a friendly football game with colleagues. They thought they were only meant to have a conversation -- about what is unclear -- with the banker. But as they were waiting, a stranger -- whose identity is unknown -- approached the two men and handed them each a gun. The unidentified man ordered Proglyad and Polovinkin to kill Kozlov.

Soon after, Kozlov was killed in the parking lot.

[vargan]

> The Moscow's prosecutor's office claims that was a gay affair.
Well gays are known for beign extremely jealous. Stabbing to death is not uncommon.

I think matters have almost sorted out.

[LibertyRocks]

First, thank you for posting the article.

You said, "Firstly, there were 29 journalists mudered under Yeltsin, and 12 under Putin, but then it is easy for you to call Putin KGB."

Of course it's easy to call Putin KGB, because he was KGB, was he not?

Here's what it all comes down to; I'm very concerned about the safety and security of the U.S. when viewing the relationships Putin has created with China, Iran, Venezuela, N. Korea, etc... etc... Then add that with his reluctance to support the War on Terror even though the Islamic Radicals are the ones that perpetrated the Beslan Massacre and are causing the problems in Chechnya, etc...

Now, I will admit that perhaps it is from growing up during the cold war, but I'm afraid that Russia has just hid her ways to get the West off her back, and the plans for Russian dominance of the world are not really gone.

I truly wish the best for Russia's citizens, but I also wish their leaders would quit backing some of the most despotic regimes in our world. Seriously, why in the world, knowing full well the horrors that communism brought to the USSR would they support regimes that are actively oppressing their citizens by the same system and that wish to export their socialist/communist/fascist ways by force (i.e. Iran, Syria, Venezuela, etc...)?

[Religion Moderator]

Knock off the personal attacks.

[lizol]

Ping

[GSlob]

In other news: the second apple has fallen on the head of Sir Isaac Newton. "This confirms the law of gravity', said the prominent scientist.
What else to expect? This is the practically unchangeable character and nature of a Huntingtonian civilization, now on a bit fuller display than a few years ago. Sometimes it is more visible, and sometimes less.

[TexasRepublic]

BTW Kazahks are very angry with Barat, for his xenophobia towards them

Borat is simply an outrageous comedy. The funniest thing about Borat is that Kazahkstan would get angry about a comedian! That is funnier than Borat himself. Most of us learn to ignore petty insults and misunderstood humor. Life is good, enjoy it!

[TX Bluebonnet]

Is foul play suspected? No joke, I was listening to the news about that other female journalist who was shot and the talking head said "foul play is suspected". Gee, you think?

[NRA2BFree]

WoW, Putin is really silencing the media. I wish we would do that here. ;o) I've got recommendations for several I wouldn't mind seeing go live with their great, great, grandfathers. LOL

In all seriousness, didn't a woman reporter just get slain in the last week or two? So much for Democracy in Russia!

[G8 Diplomat]

In Moscow, Top journalist knifed to death"

Again? This is what? The fourteenth journalist to be murdered since Putin took office?

[Political Junkie Too]

And they say that Bush is stifling dissent?

-PJ

[GodGunsGuts]

Do you think Communism made Russian civilization worse, kept it about the same, or made it better? Just curious what you mean by "practically unchangeable character".

To my mind, starting with Peter the Great, Russia was moving towards an ever increasing embrace of Western Civilization, only to be thwarted by the advent of the Bolsheviks.

[Thunder90]

The Eurasian movement also has the backing of the Communist Pary-Russian Federation and the NBP, and some Chinese generals also back the idea.

[Thunder90]

What do you think of the Shanghai Coorperative Organization and how it relates to Eurasianism???

[Centurion2000]

And May I ask FR locals one question? Very Curious, Why almost every western media lifted corpse of Politkoskaya and shake it before western audience. "Oh!!! look, it's a crappy Putin's regime. How barbaric it is. She was his uncompromising critic !!!". And immediately without any doubt found him guilty of murder!

Because they are idiotic reptiles.

[GSlob]

You have a FRmail with an outline of analysis,

[GSlob]

'Very Curious, Why almost every western media lifted corpse of Politkoskaya and shake it before western audience. "
Try this for a possible answer:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1720327/posts?page=5#5