Russian newspaper editor slain after reporting on organized crime

By The Associated Press

05.13.02

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MOSCOW — The chief editor of a newspaper in central Russia was shot and killed outside his home on April 29 in what colleagues say was retaliation for the newspaper's coverage of organized crime.

Valery Ivanov, 33, was the founder and editor in chief of the Togliatti Review and a member of the city council in Togliatti, an automaking center on the Volga River about 550 miles southeast of Moscow.

He was shot seven times while in his car, which was parked just outside his apartment building, the Togliatti Review reported.

The newspaper called it a contract killing, and said it knew who was responsible and had informed the authorities. The Kommersant national newspaper reported that police also viewed the attack as a contract killing connected to Ivanov's newspaper work.

The Togliatti Review had written frequently in recent months about local criminal groups in Togliatti, home to Russia's biggest carmaker, Avtovaz. Ivanov had also spoken written about corruption among local officials, and against pressure on journalists in post-Soviet Russia such as criminal threats or tax raids against news organizations critical of the authorities.

His newspaper, in reporting on his death, said: "Valery had many friends and many enemies. But we never thought that a journalist could be killed for his convictions, because he had a point of view that is impossible to change with bribes or threats."

The English-language Moscow Times reported today that law enforcement officials and colleagues said the murder “was a contract killing for his newspaper's coverage of official corruption, organized crime and drug trafficking." The newspaper added that the city's chief prosecutor, Yevgeny Novozhilov, was quoted by Kommersant as saying there was no doubt the killer was hired for the job and that the motive "was journalism."

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