Closed-circuit TV showed Galdetsky talking to two men in Moscow's Yaroslavsky railway station. According to police, he was shot nearby at close range with his own pistol -- a rubber-bullet gun -- after a dispute.
His father, physicist Anatoly Galdetsky, believes the police were behind the attack on his son, noting that the assailants only took his mobile phone and notebook, leaving all his money and an expensive watch.
"It's logical to suppose that police officers who were caught up in German's investigations decided that if they beat him up he would be frightened and give up. When he took a pistol out during the scuffle one of them grabbed it and shot him," he told the Kolokol.ru human rights Web site.
Kirill Mazurin, chief Moscow police spokesman, dismissed this possibility, describing Galdetsky as a self-appointed vigilante who could have landed himself in the situation.
"He was a moral crusader, but that is the police's job. If a citizen sees a disturbance he should go to professionals, police officers," he said.
But amid widespread bribe extorting by badly paid police officers, and beatings and deaths in police custody and reports of torture to extract confessions, 75 percent of Russians do not trust law enforcement agencies, according to opinion polls.
"It's frightening to think that girls are at risk from those who according to the law should be protecting them. It's even more frightening that police chiefs are shielding the guilty," Galdetsky said as he waged his ill-fated campaign.
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