Paul Klebnikov

Klebnikov, 41, a U.S. citizen, was shot four times near his office about 10 p.m. and died on his way to a hospital, the Interfax news agency reported.

Klebnikov earned himself a reputation in Russia in 1996 while Boris Yeltsin was president, when he wrote an article in Forbes calling exiled Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky the "Godfather of the Kremlin."

The article suggested the billionaire entrepreneur -- who made his fortune during Russia's controversial privatization program in the 1990s and is being sought by Moscow authorities on fraud and embezzlement charges -- might have been implicated in the murder of a well-known television presenter and had links with the Chechen mafia.

In his 2000 book The Godfather of the Kremlin; Boris Berezovsky and the Pillage of Russia, Klebnikov asserted that Berezovsky had also salted hundreds of millions of dollars out of Russia.

The Japan Times Weekly: July 17, 2004
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