Chechen 'ordered Forbes killing'
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russian prosecutors have determined that the murder of the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine last summer was ordered by a Chechen man he wrote about in one of his books.
According to prosecutor Vasily Gluschenko, the criminal investigation established that Paul Klebnikov's murder was ordered by Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev and was carried out by a Chechen organized crime group.
Two members of the group have been arrested, and warrants have been issued to detain two others in the organization. A warrant for Nukhayev's arrest has been issued as well.
Gluschenko said Nukhayev was unhappy with the way Klebnikov described him in his book "Conversation With a Barbarian," and investigators say that was the motive for Klebnikov's murder.
According to Gluschenko, members of the group are also accused of committing other contract killings.
Klebnikov, a U.S. citizen, was shot four times while leaving his office the evening of July 9, 2004 and died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.
An experienced investigative reporter, he opened the Russian edition of Forbes in April 2004.
A month later, the magazine published a list of Russia's 100 richest people, a sensitive subject in a country where tycoons, called "oligarchs" in Russia, have made billions of dollars in sometimes murky circumstances.
Four years before that, Klebnikov published a book called "Godfather of the Kremlin," which traced the rise of tycoon Boris Berezovsky.
Klebnikov, whose ancestors fled Russia after its 1917 revolution, joined Forbes in 1989 and rose to the position of senior editor, specializing in Russian and Eastern European politics and economics.
He was married with three young children. He spoke Russian fluently and, his brothers said, loved Russia.
