American editor of Russian Forbes killed
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-10 15:18

An American journalist who launched Forbes Magazine's Russian edition and gained attention for publishing a list of Russia's wealthiest people was shot and killed outside his office in Moscow.

Paul Klebnikov, a 41-year-old of Russian descent, was hit four times and died in a rescue vehicle, Russian news reports said. The radio station Ekho Moskvy said shells of two different caliber were found at the scene, indicating at least two assailants.

Klebnikov started Forbes' Russian-language edition in April and was the author of a book about tycoon Boris Berezovsky. Formerly a senior editor with the U.S.-based Forbes, he had reported extensively about organized crime in Russia.

"Paul was a superb reporter — courageous, dedicated, ever-curious," Forbes publisher Steve Forbes said in a statement. "He knew Russia well. It was a country he deeply loved."

The killing was only the latest targeting a journalist in Russia. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said more than a dozen journalists have been killed in Russia since President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000 — and none have been brought to justice.

"This shameful record of impunity is one of reasons these murders continue to happen," Executive Director Ann Cooper said in comments posted on the group's Web site. "It sends a chilling message to Russian journalists and a terrible message to the rest of the world about the Kremlin's indifference to press freedom."

Alexander Gordeyev, editor of the Russian edition of Newsweek magazine, which has offices in the same building, said he came to Klebnikov's side as he lay outside the building.

He was still conscious and able to speak, "but he couldn't say anything about what could have been the cause of the attack," Gordeyev told The Associated Press.

The Interfax news agency quoted Leonid Bershidsky, the publisher of Russian Forbes and Newsweek, as saying that Klebnikov recently "had not dug up anything sensitive."

In May, Forbes attracted wide attention by publishing a list of Russia's wealthiest people, claiming that Moscow had more billionaires who worked there or amassed their fortunes there than any other city in the world.

"Here people fly and fall with staggering speed," Klebnikov said at a news conference when the list was released.

On its Web site, the Committee to Protect Journalists noted publishing the list was a delicate matter.

"Publication of the list focused attention on Russia's billionaires, many of whom are trying to keep a low profile as President Vladimir Putin uses the country's courts, prosecutors, and security services to rein in Russian oligarchs and strengthen the state's role in the economy," it said.

In a statement late Friday, Klebnikov's family said it expected Russia to bring the assailants to justice, and urged "U.S. and international authorities" to make sure that happens.

"Paul was a fighter for the truth," the statement said. "Even more, he believed in being positive and looking for ways to make the future better. We mourn his death."

Russian authorities have faced accusations from media rights groups that they have not done enough to solve the slayings of journalists who reported on alleged corruption among officials.

Klebnikov's 2000 book "Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia" described how Berezovsky, now living in exile in Britain, allegedly siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars out of Russia.

After Klebnikov wrote a profile of Berezovsky for Forbes in 1996, Berezovsky filed a libel suit against the magazine in Britain. He withdrew the suit in 2003 after the publication acknowledged it was wrong to allege he was involved in the murder of a television personality.

Klebnikov in May said that he believed the chaotic post-Soviet years, when business disputes were often settled by gunfire and car bombs, were a thing of the past.

"The era of so called bandit-capitalism is already in the past. In the mid-90's it was a very, very dirty process ... I think the participants of our list themselves are pleased to leave this era behind," he said.

Klebnikov was a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and the London School of Economics.

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