Russian Murders Continue, Putin Shocked, KGB Bewildered.

Russian News Agency Itar-Tass Executive Killed in Moscow
By Sebastian Alison

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- The business chief of Russian news agency Itar-Tass, Anatoly Voronin, was killed last night in his apartment in central Moscow, the agency reported.

Death was the result of multiple knife wounds, according to police, Itar-Tass reported. Several theories are being investigated, the agency said.

The body of 55-year-old Voronin was found at his home by his driver, the news agency said. He had worked at the agency for 23 years. His death is the latest in a spate of high-profile killings in Russia in little over a month.

Deputy Central Bank governor Andrei Kozlov was shot dead with his driver on Sept. 13 as he left a football match in Moscow. Russian officials arrested an unspecified number of people involved in the killing, the Prosecutor General's office said today.

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot at the entrance to her apartment block on Oct. 7. Leaders from around the world including U.S. President George W. Bush called on the Russian government to carry out a thorough investigation to find her killers. No arrests have yet been made.

Another banker, Alexander Plokhin, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head on Oct. 10. He was a branch head at VTB-24, the retail unit of Russia's second largest bank, Vneshtorgbank.

A day later Furtanbek Akhidov, from the Chechen capital Grozny, was shot dead in the courtyard of the Moscow building where he lived, Interfax reported.

Outside Moscow, Enver Ziganshin, chief engineer of BP Plc's Russian gas unit, OAO Rusia Petroleum, was gunned down in Irkutsk in Siberia on Sept. 30.

(Itar-Tass 10-16)