- Date
- 04/01/2009
- First
- Shafig
- Surname
- AMRAKHOV
- Sex/Age
- M, 51
- Incident
- homicide
- Motive
- nJ
- Place
- (stairwell entrance)
- Job
- chief editor
- Medium
- internet news agency
- Federal District Plus
- NORTHWEST
- Street, Town, Region
- Murmansk
- Freelance
- no
- Local/National
- local, RIA 51
- Other Ties
- businessman
- Cause of Death
- murder, shot
- Legal Qualification
- 111.4 (manslaughter)
- Impunity
- investigation
On 4 January 2009 Shafig Amrakhov, editor of the RIA 51 information agency, died in the regional hospital in Murmansk. He was shot several times in the stairwell entrance to his Murmansk apartment block on 30 December 2008 by an unidentified assailant. One bullet entered his head. Two operations failed to save his life.
A criminal case was opened following the attack under Article 111 (Deliberate infliction of serious injury). An investigation is now under way. This is not the first time, seemingly, that an attempt was made of Amrakhov’s life. In the mid-1990s he was attacked in the same place and struck several times over the head.
In 2001 Amrakhov himself was detained by the law enforcement agencies. Then chief editor of the Severo-Zapad: Itogi nedeli newspaper, Amrakhov and Vladimir Shkoda (chief editor of Komsomolskaya pravda-Arktika) were accused of extorting money from the director of the local hotel and restaurant complex in return for not publishing compromising materials about him in their newspapers.
At their trial the two editors categorically denied any wrongdoing but both were found guilty. Amrakhov was given six years in an ordinary regime penal colony for swindling, not obeying court orders, slander, extortion and bribery. He was released early and again took up journalism.