Thin threads link journalists’ murders

Michael Hedges March 22, 2008

Two prominent television figures died by brutal force, hours apart. Both were murdered shortly after their names appeared on a blacklist. The message is clear: don’t make enemies.

Ilyas Shurpaev, a 32-year-old reporter for Russian State TV Channel One, was found dead; stabbed and strangled in his Moscow apartment early Friday morning (March 21). He had recently moved to Moscow from Dagestan where he had worked as Channel One’s North Caucasus reporter. The Moscow Prosecutor General, almost immediately, ruled out linkage to Shurpaev’s professional activities. By Friday night police were “assuming both killings relate to the victims’ professional activities,” reported by Russia Today and AP. 

Hours later, Dagestan State Radio and TV Chairman Gadzhi (Gaji) Abashilov was machine-gunned near a shopping mall in the Dagestan capital Makhachkala. Abashilov, 58 years old, hosted a popular television program and had previously worked for a local newspaper.

Shurpaev had written hours early on his blog that his name had appeared on a blacklist of journalists barred from publishing in a Dagestani newspaper. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,“ he wrote in last blog entry, Thursday afternoon (March 20). “Now I'm a dissident!”

He mentioned a “battle going on between journalists and the founders” of a Dagestani newspaper, identified as Nastoyashcheye Vremya by RAI Novosti. “Here's what blows me away,” he wrote. “There I am… at the top of the list.” (If you read Russian, the blog – www. shurpayev.livejournal.com – is still available and includes pictures of his 5-year-old son.)

Reporting on the murders, Russia Today reiterated troubles at “a popular Dagestani newspaper,” saying, “Journalists said they were being forced to produce negative reports about Dagestan’s government and president.”

When fire investigators discovered his body – the apartment had been set on fire, presumably to cover the crime – his laptop and other valuables were untouched. Shurpaev reported from conflict zones but was not known as either an investigative journalist or political reporter.

Dagestan is a semi-autonomous Russian republic, far to the south. It borders Georgia. Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea. It also borders two Russian regions, perhaps better known: Chechnya and Ingushetia. It boasts of a multi-ethnic, multi-national population (about 2.5 million), predominantly Muslim. Dagestan has oil, gas, rebels, bandits and Russian troops.

Dagestan has little meaningful independent media. Dagestan State TV broadcasts three hours a day on Russian State TV (VGTRK) frequencies. Gaji Abashilov’s most recent task was getting FM frequencies for State radio.

Svobodnaya Respublica regularly publishes articles critical of Dagistani leaders and other figures. One of its journalists, Zaur Gaziev, was badly beaten by assailants unknown on February 29th, the same day his article mentioning Abashilov was published.

Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, now with vast experience looking into the murders of journalists, said he’d be taking “personal” charge of the investigation of Abashilov’s murder. His investigation into the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya led to the arrest of four suspects last August, most of whom were released for lack of evidence. In that case he often cited Chechnyan gangs as the likely culprits…. or ex-pat Russian billionaires. Politkovskaya, murdered in October 2006, was a dissident journalist and investigative reporter.

Ilyas Shurpaev was not. He did nice but fluffy pieces on monasteries and salmon fishing. He just happened to do them in Dagestan, Chechnya and other parts of the north Caucasus. In his blog he refers to being the “travel reporter.”

Gaji Abashilov was, according to Itar-TASS, a “local celebrity.” Before taking over the local State broadcasting unit, he had been editor of a local weekly newspaper Molodyozh Dagestana and still wrote a regular column. He hosted a TV show. In 2002 the Dagestan Bolsevik Party sued him for defamation after a column was published suggesting the local Bolsevik’s were neo-Nazis. The suit was tossed out of court.

After his beating, Zaur Gaziev said to Novayagazeta, “…all is possible in Dagestan. Your foe’s foe might organize such an attack to cross him up”. TV reporter Ruslan Gabidulin (“My programs are about cars”), also beaten up in the February 29th encounter, said of Gaziev: “He must have a lot of enemies.”

Reporters Sans Frontiers, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the European Commission condemned the killings.