Moscow: A local administration chief from Dagestan was shot dead in Moscow, prosecutors said Monday the latest attack on a top official from the turbulent southern Russian region.
Alimsultan Alkhamatov, head of Dagestan's Khasavyurt district, was shot last evening in southwest Moscow as he was getting out of his car with his bodyguards, the investigative
committee of prosecutors said in a statement.
"Alkhamatov died of his wounds on his way to hospital," the investigators said.
One suspect, a Dagestani man suspected of driving the killer to the scene, has been arrested, Russian news agencies said, adding that others were still on the run.
Alkhamatov's driver was badly wounded in the shooting and is in intensive care under police guard, the Interfax news agency said.
Just one hour before yesterday's killing, two senior police officers were shot dead in an attack in Dagestan itself when unidentified individuals fired on their car.
Alimsultan Atuyev and his nephew Abdulah Magomedgaziyev were killed in the Kizilyurt region of Dagestan, where Magomedgaziyev was an official in the fugitive search department of the local police.
Dagestan, whose name means "land of mountains" and is home to a bewildering array of languages and ethnic groups, has been especially hit in the last years from the spillover
of violence from neighbouring Chechnya.
Bureau Report
First Published: Monday, September 28, 2009, 16:11