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Death of an 'online journalist'

Posted: 24/01/03 By: Elizabeth Croad

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A Russian man who was murdered earlier this year has become the centre of speculation that his death was related to his online 'journalistic' activities.

Vladimir Sukhomlin, a 23-year-old web developer and writer from Moscow, disappeared on 4 January (2003) and his body was found three days later. He had been beaten to death with baseball bats.

Mr Sukhomlin was an active member of Russia's military-patriotic movement and the founder of two web sites, www.serbia.ru and www.checnnya.ru, which formed part of a propaganda offensive against the activities of NATO and web sites run by Chechen rebels.

In an article about the murder, the Russian daily newspaper Pravda described him as a "talented internet journalist" and threw doubt on the suggestion that his death had been the work of professionals.

Moscow police, however, came to a different conclusion. A day after the body was found and identified, they arrested two police officers from the Balashikha Police Department. Following their interrogation, a third man - an employee of a private security firm - was also arrested. Concluding that the suspects had been paid for the murder, police began to search for their employer.

On 9 January, police arrested Dmitry Ivanychev, the managing director of Plasttorg Ltd, a company based in St Petersburg. Current reports suggest that Mr Ivanychev had a business disagreement with Mr Sukhomlin over some programming he had contracted him to do, and paid the three men to 'scare' him. He claims he did not intend for them to kill him.

In the volatile world of Russian crime and politics, nothing is ever that simple though. Despite this apparently black-and-white solution to the murder mystery, Pravda wrote: "The murder of the journalist was committed in a very strange manner, more akin to the work of sadists or people with a perverted psyche, such as those who support radical Islamist views.

"The manner of the murder can also be treated as a warning to those who are still investigating the problem of the Chechen war."

Sources:
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/01/16/42115.html
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/01/14/001.html
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/01/13/001.html

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