State-run television journalist found dead in Moscow, murder suspected

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A journalist with state-run Russian television has been found dead in Moscow and prosecutors have opened a murder investigation. The ITAR-Tass news agency reports that firefighters found the body of Channel One correspondent Ilyas Shurpayev in his rented apartment with stab wounds and a belt around his neck. It says a fire was apparently set after the attack early Friday. There was no immediate word on a possible motive. The 32-year-old journalist was a native of the mostly Muslim Dagestan province and had worked in Russia's violence-ridden North Caucasus.