- Date
- 10/11/1996
- First
- Marina
- Surname
- GORELOVA
- Sex/Age
- F
- Incident
- terrorist act
- Motive
- J
- Place
- cemetery
- Job
- journalist
- Medium
- TV
- Federal District Plus
- Moscow
- Street, Town, Region
- Kotlyakovskoe cemetery, Moscow
- Freelance
- no
- Local/National
- Moscow, Otechestvo
- Other Ties
- Cause of Death
- explosive device
- Legal Qualification
- no information
- Impunity
- trial, conviction, May 2003 & December 2006
On 10 November 1996 Marina Gorelova, correspondent of the Otechestvo private TV company, was among 14 people killed in an explosion at the Kotlyakovskoe cemetery in Moscow. Yury Shmakov, the company’s military consultant, also died and the cameraman suffered concussion.
They were invited by the Russian Disabled Afghan War Veterans Foundation to the ceremony marking the anniversary of the death of Mikhail Likhodei, chairman of the foundation. Around 11 am a powerful land mine, placed under a table with funeral meats, exploded near Likhodei’s grave. This was later seen as the peak in the rivalry between different groups of war veterans which had led to Likhodei’s murder in a bomb blast in the entrance to his home.
Three men were brought to trial in 2000 for planting the bomb but were acquitted. One was the first chairman of the foundation, Valery Radchikov (died in a car crash in 2001); a second went on the run (15 years, 19 December 2006); a third was finally given 14 years in prison in 2003.
Maria Gorelova had worked at the Otechestvo company for one and half years, reporting for the “Aty-Baty” soldiers’ life programme, and participating in the “Tam-Tam Novosti” children’s programme.