Klebnikov Case Given High Priority
The Moscow Times, 13 July 2004, Valeria Korchagina
In a sign that the government has come to see the killing of Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov as not just another murder, the unit of the Prosecutor General's Office that handles high-priority cases was put in charge of the case Monday. "This means that the case's status has been raised," Prosecutor General's Office spokesman Viktor Potapov said. The investigation had been handled by the City Prosecutor's Office, which had reported little progress. ... with Russian law enforcement authorities regarding the investigation. Embassy spokesman Thomas Leary issued a statement extending deep condolences to Klebnikov's family from Ambassador Alexander Vershbow and the entire embassy community.
" Paul Klebnikov 's background and interests ideally suited him to the task of explaining Russia to Americans and vice versa," the statement said. "He was a person who tried to take the best ...
545 words English, (c) 2004 The Moscow Times All Rights Reserved

Klebnikov Murder Blots Russia's Image
The St. Petersburg Times (Russia), 13 July 2004
The murder of Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov last Friday should serve as a wake-up call to all those who believe, as he did, that Russia has changed. When the magazine was launched in April, Klebnikov wrote that its arrival in Russia was "one sign that Russian business has reached a new, more civilized stage of development."
453 words English. c) 2004 The St. Petersburg Times, Russian Story Inc. All Rights Reserved

Klebnikov Slaying Probed at Top Level
The St. Petersburg Times (Russia), 13 July 2004, Valeria Korchagina
MOSCOW - In a sign that the government has come to see the killing on Friday of Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov as not just another murder, the unit of the Prosecutor General's Office that handles high-priority cases was put in charge of the investigation Monday. "This means that the case's status has been raised," Prosecutor General's Office spokesman Viktor Potapov said. The case had been handled by the City Prosecutor's Office, whose investigators had reported little progress in the investigation. ... with Russian law enforcement authorities regarding the investigation. Embassy spokesman Thomas Leary issued a statement extending deep condolences to Klebnikov's family from Ambassador Alexander Vershbow and the entire embassy community. " Paul Klebnikov 's background and interests ideally suited him to the task of explaining Russia to Americans and vice versa," the statement said. "He was a person who tried to take the best ...
1,059 words English, (c) 2004 The St. Petersburg Times, Russian Story Inc. All Rights Reserved

The World; Killing of Forbes Russia Editor May Be Tied to List of Wealthy; Many suspect that he was shot because the magazine named the 100 richest Russians. The top prosecutor is interested in the case.
Los Angeles Times, 13 July 2004, David Holley
MOSCOW - Prosecutors investigating the gangland-style slaying of a Moscow-based American investigative journalist were focusing Monday on the possibility that the killing was linked to his work, a view shared by many observers in Russia's political and business circles. The most widely voiced suspicion was that Paul Klebnikov , 41, the editor of Forbes magazine's recently launched Russian edition, was the victim of a contract killing ordered because the magazine in May published a list of the 100 richest ... as a leader in efforts to promote transparency and more Western-style practices in Russian business. He extended his condolences to Forbes' offices Monday in a statement issued by his lawyers. " Paul Klebnikov has undoubtedly made a tremendous contribution to the cause of establishing the traditions of openness and transparency on the Russian market," the statement said. "It was possible to constructively argue ...
982 words English, Copyright 2004 The Los Angeles Times

Same Old Ruthless Russia
The Washington Post, 13 July 2004, Michael R. Caputo
American journalist Paul Klebnikov was shot to death outside my office building on Friday. At least it used to be my office. I worked with Klebnikov, Forbes magazine's maverick correspondent, several times in the past 10 years, sometimes in Moscow, sometimes in New York. Our paths crossed often through one of Russia's wildest decades. Eight years after we first met as he covered Boris Yeltsin's 1996 presidential election, his murder brings clarity: Nothing has changed. Brutal criminals still run amok in Russia, operating with impunity and no fear of prosecution. ... demand results in this murder investigation and require the assassins and their bosses be detected, arrested, tried and punished to the fullest extent of the law. Or will it let Paul Klebnikov , like Paul Tatum, be just another footnote in Russia's disingenuous flirtation with world-class rule of law? We're waiting.
Michael R. Caputo, a Miami-based writer, was an election adviser to Boris ...
908 words English, Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved

Journalists' Deaths Make It Harder to Excuse Putin's Excesses
The New York Times, 13 July 2004, By SERGE SCHMEMANN
PARIS -- On Friday night, I got a call from Moscow: my friend Paul Klebnikov , the editor in chief of Forbes Russia, a Russian version of the American business magazine, had been fatally shot as he left work. Paul's wife, Musa, was in Italy with their three children and had just spoken to him on the phone before he was shot. She was heartbreakingly brave the next day. Please gather articles about her husband, she asked, for his boys.
Then the anger rose. I am among those former Moscow correspondents, and those people of Russian descent, who have tried to stay optimistic about today's Russia and President Vladimir Putin, even in the face of all the distressing reports about Chechnya, the Yukos oil company, the media clampdown and the swelling powers of the Kremlin. You have to remember where they were a scant 15 years ago, I would argue: Mr. Putin has to restore control over the government and economy, and the oligarchs have to be reined in. ... of settling scores and amassing wealth, and that the Kremlin is not really interested in doing anything about it. A free press is not the enemy, nor is the West. Paul Klebnikov wrote about oligarchs and crime because he believed, almost naively, that Russia really wanted to become normal, that its president really wanted to know what was wrong. Many others, like ...
630 words English, (c) 2004 New York Times Company

Top Unit to Lead Investigation Of Journalist's Killing in Russia
The New York Times, 13 July 2004, By C. J. CHIVERS
MOSCOW, July 12 -- The investigation of what was apparently a contract killing of an American journalist is being handled by a unit that pursues Russia's highest priority criminal cases and is under the personal supervision of the top prosecutor in the nation, the prosecutor's spokesman said Monday. The announcement, made emphatically again Monday as it was over the weekend, underscored the seriousness that has surrounded the murder of the journalist, Paul Klebnikov . ... told the Interfax news agency on Monday. The United States Embassy here said Monday that it had offered legal assistance to Russia in the case, and issued public condolences.
Photo: Paul Klebnikov of Forbes magazine was shot to death on Friday. (Photo by Misha Japaridze/Associated Press)
676 words English, (c) 2004 New York Times Company

Journalist shot dead in Moscow showed no fear in final interview
The Independent, 13 July 2004, Andrew Osborn in Moscow
HOURS BEFORE he was shot four times in a Moscow street, Pavel Klebnikov gave an interview in which he was critical of some of the country"s wealthiest and most powerful people, including the Russian oligarch best- known in the West, Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club. Although there is no suggestion that Mr Abramovich or anyone close to him was involved in the killing of Mr Klebnikov last Friday, the interview shows just how unafraid the American journalist was of offending Russia"s movers and shakers. ... to make at least one phone call: two mobile phones were found by his side. There were also signs that the murder had dented Russia"s image abroad. "The murder of Pavel Klebnikov demonstrates that Russia is not a normal country," said The Wall Street Journal in a strongly worded editorial. "Perhaps it"s time for the leaders of free democracies to ask Mr ...
814 words English, (c) 2004 Independent Newspapers (UK) Limited . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, distributed or exploited in any way.

RICH AND FEARED: RUSSIA"S ELITE
The Independent, 13 July 2004
Pavel Klebnikov projected Russia"s wealthy elite onto the pages of Forbes magazine. Now he is dead. But the oligarchs remain in the public eye. Boris Berezovsky, 58
245 words English, (c) 2004 Independent Newspapers (UK) Limited . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, distributed or exploited in any way.

Russians see link between editor's job, slaying
Chicago Tribune, 13 July 2004, By David Holley
MOSCOW - Prosecutors investigating the gangland-style slaying of a Moscow-based American investigative journalist were focusing Monday on the possibility that the killing was linked to his work, a view shared by many observers in Russia's political and business circles. The most widely voiced suspicion was that Paul Klebnikov , 41, the editor of Forbes magazine's recently launched Russian edition, was the victim of a contract killing ordered because the magazine published a list of the 100 richest Russians in ... ... Russian Union of Journalists, said in comments reported by the Interfax news agency that "outrage, displeasure and undisguised anger" were directed at Forbes after the publication of the list. PHOTO: Paul Klebnikov , editor of Forbes' recently launched Russian edition, was gunned down Friday in Moscow. AP photo.
368 words English, Copyright 2004, Chicago Tribune. All Rights Reserved.

Russia: Watchdog warns of threat to democracy after death of US journalist Khleb
BBC Monitoring Media, 13 July 2004
Text of press release by International Federation of Journalists on 12 July
The International Federation of Journalists today called on the Russian government to enforce transparency rules on the business community and to crackdown on criminal targeting of journalists following the shooting of American journalist Paul Khlebnikov at the weekend.
447 words English, (c) 2004 The British Broadcasting Corporation [date of publication]. All Rights Reserved. No material may be reproduced except with the express permission of The British Broadcasting Corporation.

The Russia where Paul Klebnikov was killed MEANWHILE
International Herald Tribune, 13 July 2004, Serge Schmemann
PARIS - On Friday night, I got a call from Moscow; my friend, Paul Klebnikov , the editor of the Russian-language edition of Forbes magazine, had been shot dead as he left work. Paul, 41, was a cheery, earnest person, and that rare phenomenon, an optimist. His wife, Musa, and their three small children were in Italy and had just spoken to him on the phone before he was shot. She was heart- breakingly brave the next day. Please gather articles about Paul, she asked, so the children will know how wonderful their father was.
817 words English, Copyright (c) 2004 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.

Italian daily advocates `plain speaking' with Russia
BBC Monitoring European, 13 July 2004
A commentary in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera suggests that the subordination of the media in Russia and the "selective use of laws" in the case of the oil company Yukos, and its head Mikhail Khodorkovskiy, create the impression President Vladimir Putin is giving priority to his "democratic dictatorship" over his country's economic, political, and social reform needs. For this reason, it feels that Italy's leaders, as "friends", should indulge in some plain speaking" with their Russian counterparts, making it clear these methods jeopardize international confidence. The following is text of Franco Venturini commentary by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on 13 July entitled "Russian shadows over Putin":
If it is true that sincerity is a duty between good friends, then the Italian government should deliver an urgent message to the Kremlin: "Dear [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, be careful not to overdo things!" ... to make an effort to modernize his country? In this connection, what signals are we getting from Moscow right now? The latest one is the spectacular murder of US journalist Paul Khlebnikov , the man in charge of the new Russian edition of Forbes magazine, a man so rash as to publish a list of the country's top billionaires, in the same way ...
823 words English, (c) 2004 The British Broadcasting Corporation [date of publication]. All Rights Reserved. No material may be reproduced except with the express permission of The British Broadcasting Corporation.

Journalists under siege
Toronto Star, 13 July 2004, Stephen Handelman
The killing of American reporter Paul Klebnikov in Russia is already morphing into a campaign that has turned him into a symbol of the crippled state of Russian democracy When Paul Klebnikov arrived in Moscow as a young American reporter in 1993, he found himself with a front-row seat to a mob war. "I often found my protagonists being killed before I could interview them," he wrote in the book he later published about the "bandit capitalism" that plagued post-Communist Russia in the 1990s.
In May, 2004, eleven years later, he had a happier story to tell. Inaugurating the Russian-language edition of Forbes Magazine, for which he had become editor, Klebnikov announced at a Moscow press conference that the murderous era of Russian free enterprise was "already in the past."
891 words English, Copyright (c) 2004 The Toronto Star

A symbol of darkness in Moscow Forbes editor called a victim of his subject
The New York Times, 13 July 2004, C.J. Chivers
MOSCOW: The investigation of the apparent contract killing of an American journalist is being handled by a specialized unit that pursues Russia's highest-priority criminal cases and under the personal supervision of the top prosecutor in the nation, the prosecutor's spokesman said Monday. The announcement, made emphatically on Monday as it had been during the weekend, underscored the seriousness that has surrounded the murder of the journalist, Paul Klebnikov .
Klebnikov, 41, was the editor in chief of Forbes Russia, a Russian-language magazine affiliated with the American business magazine of the same name. He was struck by four 9-millimeter bullets ...
677 words English, Copyright (c) 2004 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.

FOCUS - Russia walks tightrope to economic growth.
Prime-TASS News (Russia), 13 July 2004
MOSCOW, July 12 (Prime-Tass) - In the six years since the 1998 financial crisis, the revitalization of Russia's bruised and battered economy has bucked expectations. The zenith came in 2003, when Russia's GDP grew 7.3%, and the trend seems set to continue this year, with government's GDP forecast at a robust 6.4%. Although this rate will probably not deliver President Vladimir Putin's stated goal of doubling GDP by 2010, it is, by all accounts, quite respectable and is complemented, moreover, by a myriad of other positive macroeconomic factors.
... capital flight from Russia indicates a growing perception of unreliability in the Russian economy, analysts said.
And all this is only underscored by the highly symbolic murder last Friday of Paul Klebnikov , editor of Forbes' Russian edition, who proclaimed boldly - and it seems, alas, wrongly - that the age of crony capitalism in Russia is over. However, in a land like ...
1,492 words English, © [2004] PRIME-TASS News Agency All Rights Reserved

An attack on liberty itself
The Ottawa Citizen, 13 July 2004
The murder last week of Paul Klebnikov was not just an attack on an individual journalist but an assault on the foundations of a free and successful Russia. Mr. Klebnikov, the 41-year-old editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, had made a name for himself documenting the excesses of Russia's explosive transition to Wild West capitalism. He reported first- hand on the banditry that turned a handful of oligarchs into billionaires but left too many Russians one step from the gutter. Mr. Klebnikov shone journalistic light into a very dark place, to the displeasure of the the oligarchs, who preferred to commit their predations in the shadows.
300 words English, Copyright © 2004 Ottawa Citizen

MOSCOW BRASS TO PROBE EDITOR SLAY
New York Post, 13 July 2004, PAUL THARP
A high-level probe is under way on whether Forbes' Moscow editor Paul Klebnikov was shot dead in the street for publishing a list revealing Moscow's secret billionaires. Officials in Moscow yesterday empaneled a special crimes unit following the weekend slaying of the 41-year-old New Yorker who headed the magazine's Russian edition, which launched in April.
302 words English, (c) 2004 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.  

UNESCO Director-General condemns murder of Forbes editor.
ITAR-TASS World Service, 13 July 2004, Yuri Ulyanovsky
PARIS, July 13 (Itar-Tass) -- UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura has condemned categorically the murder of the chief editor of the Russian-language version of the Forbes Magazine, Paul Khlebnikov ... framework authorized to protect the freedom of expression and press in accordance with the U.N. Charter. A source in the Axel Springer Russia Publishing House in Moscow told ITAR-TASS that Paul Khlebnikov who was killed in Moscow last Friday would be buried in New York after the burial service in the Cathedral of St. Nicholas on July 16.
A requiem service for Paul Khlebnikov will also be held in Moscow, in the lower, Transfiguration church of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior at 14.00 Moscow time on Wednesday, July 14. The Forbes publisher Leonid ... ... for the first time the list of 100 wealthiest business people of Russia. According to some journalists and analysts, that publication might have become the reason for the slaying of Paul Khlebnikov.
596 words English,(c) 2004 ITAR-TASS

Putin presidency faced with three damaging issues.
Financial Times, 13 July 2004, By MARTIN SMITH
Sir, Vladimir Putin's second term as Russian president is already in trouble. This is a leader who gives the impression of being in power but not in control. On three issues his international credibility is on the line. ... the bank's president, a mandate to clean up the banking sector, with powers to overrule the central bank if necessary. Finally, the cynical murder in central Moscow last Friday of Paul Klebnikov , editor of Forbes magazine's Russian edition, should alert the international community to the fact that investigative journalists in Russia are an endangered species. More than 100 have been murdered over ...
403 words English, (c) 2004 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved

PAVEL KHLEBNIKOV'S LAST INTERVIEW
WPS: What the Papers Say, 13 July 2004, Tatiana Vitebskaya
Reference: Izvestia, July 13, 2004, pp. 1 - 2
/WPS Summary: Russian Forbes Chief Editor Pavel Khlebnikov gave this interview seven hours before his death./
WPS Subject: RUSSIAN FORBES CHIEF EDITOR PAVEL KHLEBNIKOV GAVE THIS INTERVIEW SEVEN HOURS BEFORE HIS DEATH
Question: You are author of The Kremlin's Godfather [a book about Boris Berezovsky - Izvestia]. Do you think Berezovsky was to be blamed for everything indeed? Has anything changed in Russia?
Pavel Khlebnikov : Russia is at a crossroads now. Sure, oligarchs' clout with the federal authorities is not what it used to be, but monopolies survived all the same. It is their very existence that prevents appearance of free market economy without which any economic development is impossible.
Question: But something must have happened since the 1990's.
|Pavel Khlebnikov : Not that much, if you ask me. Like before, just a few men control a substantial part of economy. Like before, these men wield influence with the state policy. The ... ... capacities nowadays than, say, the military or retirees.
Question: But this is what Putin has been saying - that oligarchs should be put to an equal distance from decision-making centers...
Question: And yet, representatives of major businesses are different now from what they were like in Berezovsky'e era.
1,064 words English, (c) 2004 WPS Russian Media Monitoring Agency. All rights reserved.

Lawless Russia
The Asian Wall Street Journal, 13 July 2004
The murder of Forbes Russia Editor-in-Chief Paul Klebnikov on a Moscow street Friday night was the most dramatic display yet of the lawlessness that has Russia in its grip. Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov says he has taken "personal control" of the case, a suggestion that the Russian state is finally conscious of its bad image in the world. But under its present leadership, the state is itself an important part of the problem. The 41-year-old Mr. Klebnikov was a brilliant journalist and student of Russian history. He had written for different Journal editions several times, most recently last November when he argued that the arrest of Russia's richest businessman, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was a blow against the "kleptocracy" that had enriched itself with state assets under Boris Yeltsin's privatization program. ... himself was a KGB functionary.
Yet Mr. Putin is welcomed to international parleys, such as G-8 meetings, as if he were the leader of a normal country. The murder of Paul Klebnikov demonstrates that Russia is not a normal country. Perhaps it's time for the leaders of free democracies to ask Mr. Putin whether the rule of law exists in Russia.
445 words English,(c) 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc

Police hunt `rich list' editor's killers
The Times, 13 July 2004, Jeremy Page
Moscow - COLLEAGUES and friends paid their last respects yesterday to Paul Khlebnikov , the murdered editor of the Russian edition of business magazine Forbes, as police searched his flat and office to find out if he was killed for exposing the wealth of Russia's corporate elite.
309 words English,Copyright 2004 News Ltd. All Rights Reserved