Russian mafia boss shot dead
2013-01-16 18:19
Moscow - A man believed to be one of Russia's biggest
mafia bosses was shot dead in the centre of Moscow on Wednesday as he was
leaving a restaurant after lunch, the interior ministry said.
Aslan Usoyan, known by his nickname of "Grandpa
Hassan", was killed by a shot from a sniper's rifle as he was exiting the
Karetny Dvor restaurant.
"After being injured in the shooting he was taken to
hospital where he died," an interior ministry official told the RIA
Novosti news agency.
Reports said that a woman was injured in the leg in the
shooting.
Usoyan had already survived an assassination bid in
September 2010 when he was shot in the abdomen in central Moscow.
He was seen as a close ally of Russian mafia kingpin
Vyacheslav "Yaponchik" Ivankov who died of wounds from an
assassination attempt in 2009.
Contract killings in business turf wars are much rarer in
Moscow than in the chaotic 1990s but still occur sporadically in the Russian
capital.
