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Russian journalist found dead in his Moscow apartment

A journalist with state-run Russian television has been found dead in a Moscow apartment with a belt around his neck and numerous stab wounds -- a grisly murder that reinforces Russia's image as one of the most dangerous countries for reporters.

The victim, Channel One journalist Ilyas Shurpayev, comes from the southern province of Dagestan, which is plagued by clan struggles and criminal violence.

Later Friday, unidentified gunmen also shot and killed the head of Dagestan's provincial state-controlled TV station, and police were looking at a possible link between the two murders.

There is no evidence so far that Shurpayev's killing was connected to his work, and little chance that his reports on state station, which is controlled by the Kremlin, would have angered authorities.

Russia has increasingly been seen as unsafe for journalists. In 2006, Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote about Russian atrocities in Chechnya, was shot to death in a killing that has never been solved.

Firefighters found Shurpayev's body in his rented studio apartment early Friday after a fire apparently set after the attack, Channel One spokeswoman Larisa Krymova said.

The Investigative Committee, the branch of the prosecutor's office that announced the murder investigation, said nothing about a possible motive for Shurpayev's killing. Krymova also declined comment on that aspect of the case.

State-run Vesti-24 television cited a concierge in Shurpayev's building as saying he had called down from his apartment early Friday to ask her to let in two young men.

Shurpayev, 32, has worked in Russia's violence-ridden North Caucasus, which includes Dagestan and war-scarred Chechnya.

Hours before his death, Shurpayev wrote in his blog that the owners of a newspaper in Dagestan banned a column he wrote from appearing in the paper and instructed its staffers not to mention his name in publications.
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