- Date
- 01/03/1995
- First
- Vladislav
- Surname
- LISTYEV
- Sex/Age
- M, 39
- Incident
- homicide
- Motive
- nJ
- Place
- stairwell entrance
- Job
- director
- Medium
- TV
- Federal District Plus
- Moscow
- Street, Town, Region
- Moscow
- Freelance
- no
- Local/National
- national, ORT
- Other Ties
- Cause of Death
- shot, contract killing
- Legal Qualification
- 103 (murder; 1960 Criminal Code)
- Impunity
- investigation
(Entry revised, April 2010)
Vladislav Listyev, general director of ORT TV, was shot dead in the stairwell entrance to his apartment block in Moscow on the evening of 1 March 1995.
From 1982 worked for the foreign broadcasting service of the Soviet TV and radio service. In 1987 he became one of the presenters of the popular, perestroika programme Vzglyad and, subsequently, a game-show host and master of other forms of TV entertainment. In 1991 he became general producer at Ostankino and in 1995 was appointed acting general director of its successor, the newly-formed ORT.
ORT like its predecessor Ostankino could broadcast to the entire former Soviet Union. It became a limited company and a major issue became the sale of advertising time. Listyev proposed that the company itself should deal with advertising sales and revenues and wanted a moratorium on all advertising until the issue was resolved. After his death a “less transparent” system was put in place and advertising was farmed out.
Clearly a contract killing of the kind familiar in the new Russian “business world”, the lengthy and extensive investigation after ten years had failed to identify, charge and prosecute those responsible.
INVESTIGATION NOT CLOSED
1 March 2010 marked the 15th anniversary of the murder of prominent television journalist Vladislav Listyev. Some media reports have stated that the statute of limitations for this crime [10 years under the 1960 Criminal Code] has expired and the journalist’s assassins have nothing more to fear. The Investigations Committee of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office hastily announced that there are no grounds for closing the case.
Under the present Russian Criminal Code, the statute of limitations for especially grave crimes is 15 years [1996 Criminal Code, in force since 1 January 1997].
The Listyev killing stirred a broad public response and became one of the highest-profile killings in post-Soviet Russia. Although about two thousand witnesses have been questioned in connection with his murder (the case materials fill 200 volumes) and several suspects have been detained - dozen people have confessed, at different times, to killing the journalist - the investigators have never found the real culprits.
The actual killers, they say, are probably no longer alive themselves. Which means that finding those who ordered and organised the crime is now virtually impossible.
March 2010 (CJES)
http://www.cjes.ru/bulletins/?bid=3751&country=Russia&lang=eng