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Alert

Islamist group claims responsibility for journalist's murder

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has condemned the killing of Magomedzagid Varisov, the second journalist to be murdered this year in Russia, and called on Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to order an immediate investigation to identify both perpetrators and instigators and bring them to justice.

Varisov was gunned down at around 9:00 p.m. (local time) on 28 June 2005 in Makhachkala, capital of the southwestern republic of Dagestan, as he was getting out of his car in front of his home. He died instantly, while his driver, who was wounded by several shots, was hospitalised. Varisov's wife, who was also with him, was not hit. The police said they were looking for a black Lada car which the gunmen used to get away.

It seems likely that Varisov was killed because of his work as a journalist. The head of the political section of the weekly "Novoye Delo", Varisov was very critical of the Dagestani opposition in his articles. He also headed the Republican Centre for Strategic and Political Initiatives.

In a recent article, Varisov had raised questions about the fact that some 1,000 refugees from the Chechen village of Borozdinovskaya (in the Chelkovsky region) had crossed illegally into Dagestan after a Russian Special Forces raid on the village. He accused the Dagestani opposition of exploiting the situation to stir up hatred between the Chechen and Dagestani communities.

Varisov's murder came just as "Novoye Delo" was about to publish a second article naming those responsible for the ease of cross-border movements between Dagestan and Chechnya. Varisov and other members of the newspaper's editing team had been receiving telephoned death threats over the past year and Varisov told his colleagues he had been followed several times.

On 30 June, the http://www.kavkazcenter.com website posted a letter from the Wahhabi Islamist group "Sharia" claiming responsibility for the murder. "We punished the one who was the FSB [Federal Security Services, formerly KGB] collaborator, who was the spokesman for Kremlin propaganda and for those who are in power in Dagestan, and who was one of the ideologues of the struggle against the establishment of the Sharia in Dagestan," the message said.