Forbes editor killed in Moscow

2004-07-10 09:08

Moscow - The editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, known for his investigative reports into the country's business sector, was shot dead on Friday night in Moscow, police said.

Paul Khlebnikov, a United States citizen, was hit by four bullets in a street near the magazine's offices in northeast Moscow about 22:00 as he headed for the metro, reported radio Ekho-Moskvy.

An unknown gunman fired several shots at the journalist before fleeing in a dark-coloured getaway car being driven by an accomplice.

Khlebnikov asked passers-by to alert a friend of his. He died soon afterwards in an ambulance as he was being taken to hospital, Interfax reported.

Khlebnikov, 41, earned himself a reputation in Russia in 1996, while Boris Yeltsin was president, when he wrote an article in Forbes calling exiled Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky the "Godfather of the Kremlin".

Victim of 'own lack of accuracy'

The article suggested the billionaire entrepreneur - who made his fortune during Russia's controversial privatisation programme in the 1990s and is being sought by the Moscow authorities on fraud and embezzlement charges - might have been implicated in the murder of a well-known television presenter and had links with the Chechen mafia.

Berezovski, speaking from exile in London, told Russia's Ria-Novosti news agency on Saturday that Khlebnikov was a victim of his "own lack of accuracy in the way he reported the facts".

"Unfortunately his way of reporting the facts was very arbitrary. He invented much. It seems he seriously upset someone," the billionaire added.

In his 2000 book, The Godfather of the Kremlin, Boris Berezovski and the pillage of Russia, Khlebnikov asserted that Berezovsky had also salted hundreds of millions of dollars out of Russia.

Last year, Berezovski won a court case in England which required Forbes to admit that the "godfather" tag was unfounded.

Born in New York to a family of Russian immigrants, Khlebnikov had worked for Forbes magazine since he was 15. He had published several articles on Russian business figures.

Received several threats

"I don't think that it (the murder) is linked to any article that we have published or which was to have appeared in the next issue. I don't know why it happened," said Forbes Russia chairman Maxim Kashulinski.

Forbes Rossia, the Russian edition of the US magazine which publishes an annual list of the world's most powerful celebrities, was first published in April.

In May, it produced a list of the 100 most wealthy people in Russia, bringing under the spotlight many businessmen who would prefer not to become celebrities.

Khlebnikov had admitted that he had received several threats after publication of the list, according to Ekho-Moskvy.

- AFP