Journalist Assassinated in Violent Russian Republic
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Version 0 of 1. MOSCOW — A prominent journalist who had accused local authorities of persecuting and kidnapping Muslims was shot dead in an ambush in the violent Russian republic of Dagestan on Tuesday, police officials said. The journalist, Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, 53, a deputy editor of the independent daily newspaper Novoye Delo, had already survived a January assassination attempt at the same spot just outside the capital, Makhachkala. “They were waiting for him at an intersection just 50 meters from his house,” said Fatina Ubaidatova, a spokeswoman for the local police, adding that they did not have any suspects. “They fired several shots into the car and he was hit in the head. He died there.” The killing is the latest in a steady tide of attacks on journalists in Dagestan, which is facing a low-level Islamic insurgency. According to data from the Russian Union of Journalists, Mr. Akhmednabiyev is the 17th journalist to be killed or die under suspicious circumstances in Dagestan since 1993. The police say most of the killings have been carried out by “members of the criminal underground,” though it is rarely, if ever, clear what their allegiances are. In the majority of the assassinations, journalists are shot in their cars, and the cases are rarely solved. Mr. Akhmednabiyev saw few topics as off limits, writing about what he described as extrajudicial kidnappings by local security forces, human rights violations during counterterrorism operations, and pressure against Muslim organizations. He regularly received threatening phone calls and text messages from unidentified sources, said Khadzhimurad Sagitov, editor in chief of Novoye Delo. “We expected this,” Mr. Sagitov said by telephone while waiting for a funeral procession for Mr. Akhmednabiyev to arrive at a cemetery on the outskirts of Makhachkala. “We knew that if not today, then it would happen tomorrow, or the next day.” In December 2011, Khadzhimurad Kamalov, the founder of the independent Chernovik newspaper, was gunned down outside the newspaper’s offices in Makhachkala. Mr. Kamalov’s name had been included on a so-called kill list of people whom the unknown authors accused of supporting local Islamist militants and bearing the blame for the death of police officers and civilians in the conflict. Mr. Akhmednabiyev’s name was also on the list, though it was not clear why. Deadly attacks, which are rarely solved by the local police, have become a common way of silencing journalists in Dagestan in recent years. The police spokeswoman said that while the attack was probably linked to Mr. Akhmednabiyev’s professional activities, she could not name any particular articles or a specific motive in the killing. Mr. Sagitov similarly said he could not name a particular article of Mr. Akhmednabiyev’s as a likely trigger behind the attack, adding that he “never made it personal” in articles that accused local authorities of crimes. “He was a religious man,” said Mr. Sagitov. “That helped him deal with the threats.” On Tuesday, several hundred mourners carried Mr. Akhmednabiyev’s body from a downtown mosque down a main avenue in Makhachkala to a local cemetery. Some also held signs, one that read: “Who’s next?” |