(RSF/IFEX) – According to RSF, in the early morning of 8 June 1998, Larissa Yudina, editor-in-chief of the daily “Sovietskaya Kalmykia”, was kidnapped and murdered in Elista, the capital of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia (in the south of the country). On the evening of 7 June, an unknown person claiming to be a representative […]
(RSF/IFEX) – According to RSF, in the early morning of 8 June 1998, Larissa
Yudina,
editor-in-chief of the daily “Sovietskaya Kalmykia”, was kidnapped and
murdered in Elista, the capital of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia (in the
south of the country). On the evening of 7 June, an unknown person claiming
to be a representative of the Agency for Co-development, reporting to the
President of Kalmykia, had made an appointment with the journalist. He was
to give her documents on the misappropriation of funds, which implicated the
President of the Republic, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. On Monday morning, the
police, alerted by Yudina’s husband, found her body with several stab wounds
in a dam in the town.
**Further to IFEX alert of 9 June 1998**
Yudina was also regional vice-president of the opposition party Yabloko. Her
newspaper was in constant conflict with President Ilyumzhinov, who is also
an influential businessman. “Sovietskaya Kalmykia” has published numerous
articles criticising his authoritarianism and denouncing the corruption and
misappropriation of funds under his presidency. For the past eighteen
months, Yudina had also been inquiring into a company connected to President
Ilyumzhinov, called Aris, which granted tax exemptions to firms setting up
in an off-shore area of the republic. In her newspaper she claimed that the
practice was accompanied by bribes paid by firms to the Kalmykian President.
“Sovietskaya Kalmykia”, the only opposition newspaper in Kalmykia, has often
been threatened with closure by authorities. Since 1993, Yudina had also
received numerous threats due to her articles on the wealth and personality
of President Ilyumzhinov.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to authorities:
about
ten were in Chechnya, have been killed in Russia because of their opinions
or while practising their profession; and that, since the beginning of 1998,
five other information professionals have been killed in suspicious
circumstances
murderers of Larissa Yudina are found as soon as possible and that their
arrest makes it possible to determine the motives for this crime and to
identify the people behind it
associated
with virtually all the murders of journalists in Russia
Appeals To
His Excellency Boris Yeltsin
President of Federation of Russia
Moscow
fax : 70 95 224 0366/206 5173/206 6277
or e-mail c/o Marat Guriev, Administration of President Yeltsin:
marat@guriev.niiros.msk.suYuri Skuratov
Prosecutor General of Russia
Moscow, Russia
Fax: +70 95 292 88 48/+70 95 925 18 79
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
