Date

21/09/2000  

First

Iskander  

Surname

KHATLONI  

Sex/Age

M, 45  

Incident

homicide  

Motive

nJ  

Place

flat  

Job

journalist  

Medium

radio  

Federal District Plus

Moscow  

Street, Town, Region

Onezhskaya St, Moscow  

Freelance

no  

Local/National

foreign, Radio Liberty  

Other Ties

 

Cause of Death

murder, stabbed  

Legal Qualification

no information  

Impunity

investigation, halted  

On 21 September 2000 passers-by found journalist Iskander Khatloni bleeding on Onezhskaya Street in Moscow not far from the building where he rented a flat. An ambulance took Khatloni to the Botkin hospital where he died from a severe head injury.

Khatloni worked for Radio Liberty in its Tajik department and was well known for his reports from Afghanistan, Iran and Chechnya. A colleague said he had recently been gathering a great deal of information about the Tajik narco-mafia but could not say with certainty that this was linked to his death.

The preliminary investigation indicated that Khatloni had been struck with a heavy, sharp object such as a hatchet. None of the valuable objects on his person had been taken. The police were inclined to consider this a crime driven by private motives.

Khatloni worked as a translator at Kabul University. When civil war broke out in Tajikistan he became a journalist there. He moved to Moscow where he published articles in various magazines and worked for the BBC before joining Radio Liberty.

The memorial fund for the defence of journalists in Tajikistan said that Khatloni was 76th journalist from that country to die a violent death.