A deputy in the Russian parliament was shot dead today as he walked his dog in a Moscow suburb.
According to police, Mr Vladimir Golovlyov, a member of the new Liberal Russia party, had last year been banned from leaving the country after allegedly pocketing a fortune in a privatisation fraud.
"With him were two bodyguards who said that they did not see anything," a Moscow prosecutor said. His dog had foiled an attempt on his life earlier this year.
Mr Golovlyov had denied any guilt in the criminal case against him. The charges related to the privatisation of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine, one of the leading plants in the metal industry, in the early 1990s.