Update: Russian reporter and TV station chief killed

Posted by Paul McNally on 22 March 2008 at 23:23
Tags: Journalism

Two Russian TV journalists with links to the troubled southern province of Dagestan have been killed, AP reports.

Ilyas Shurpayev - a reporter for the state-owned Channel One - has been found dead in his Moscow apartment, in what looks to be the latest in a series of contract killings which have claimed the lives of more than a dozen journalists since 2000.

The killing came just hours after he wrote on his blog that a column he had written for a newspaper about a visit to his home province of Dagestan had been spiked.

Russian police have also confirmed that Gadzhi Abashilov, the head of Dagestan’s television news station, has been shot and killed in his car.

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