Date

26/02/2006  

First

Ilya  

Surname

ZIMIN  

Sex/Age

M, 32  

Incident

homicide  

Motive

nJ  

Place

flat  

Job

journalist  

Medium

TV  

Federal District Plus

Moscow  

Street, Town, Region

Moscow  

Freelance

no  

Local/National

national, NTV  

Other Ties

 

Cause of Death

murder, beaten  

Legal Qualification

111 (manslaughter)  

Impunity

trial, acquittal, 01 December 2007  

GDF, 268 (2006)

Ilya Zimin, special reporter for the NTV channel, was killed in Moscow on February 26.

His body was found by a colleague, Vadim Takmenyov, who had arrived at Mr. Zimin’s apartment worried by Ilya’s failure to report to work or answer the phone. Finding the door open, he went in to find the house in a real mess, with clear signs of struggle and blood all around.

Police say Mr. Zimin himself must have let his murderer inside because there are no traces of breaking on the entrance door. It is still unclear what happened next; it is only evident that there was struggle in which the journalist was killed. Judging by everything, Ilya received a heavy blow on the head from behind.

The prosecutor’s office of Moscow’s North-Eastern District has instituted legal proceedings under Article 111(4) (“Deliberately inflicted grave bodily damage resulting in the victim’s accidental death”) of the RF Penal Code, Sergey Marchenko, chief of the prosecutor’s office’s legal support division, said. “So far we have not found any evidence linking Ilya Zimin’s death with his professional activities,” Mr. Marchenko said, adding that, according to preliminary estimates, no valuables are missing from the victim’s apartment.

According to the daily Kommersant, the concierge saw three unidentified men visiting Mr. Zimin at around 10 a.m. that day. They showed policemen’s ID cards at the entrance and left about an hour later. Another eyewitness, who was walking her dog in the yard, says she heard shouts for help but could not make out where they came from.

There is a video camera at the entrance to Mr. Zimin’s house, but it ran out of tape on Saturday evening.

It may as well be noted here that it was not the first assault on Ilya Zimin. As early as in April, three men had approached him on his way home, asked for a cigarette, then kicked him off his feet and robbed him of his money, documents and cellular phone.