"COMMERSANT", N 195, Wednesday, October 18, 2000

A well-known journalist, reporter of several Italian radiostations, Antonio Russo was found dead 40 km to the east from Tbilisi. The investigators suppose that the assassination of the Italian is bound up with his journalist activities in Chechnya.

On Monday in the evening the body of the journalist was found near the road between villages Udzharma and Gombor by the officers of the road police. Having found out that the dead was a foreigner the policemen inmediately informed the Ministry of Interior of Georgia

about the incident. The body was sent for forensic examination. The post-mortem showed that the dead had four ribs broken and his thorax was seriously damaged. It is supposed that it is a result of beating.

The deputy of the Georgian parliament, chairman of the commission for relations with the peoples of the Northern Caucasus Mamuka Areshidze who had known Antonio Russo very well, told to the reporter of the "Commersant" that the Italian had come to Georgia in November 1999. In the first place he was interested in what was going on in Chechnya. Before coming to Georgia he worked in Bosnia. The journalist Antonio Russo was the member of the Italian Radical Party, one of the most influential parties in Italy.

According to Mr. Areshidze the Italian for months stayed in Pankiss canyon at the board with Chechnya where the Chechen community of Georgia and thousands of Chechen refugees live. Several times he tried to pass legally to Chechnya through the Russian check-point Verkhny Lars in the Northern Osetia, but he was refused to enter Russia.

Antonio Russo rented an appartment in the capital of Georgia and according to his acquaintances he often interviewed the leader of Chechen band formations Aslan Maskhadov using his satellite telephone (which disappeared, by the way). With the help of Chechen residents of the Pankiss canyon of Georgia he managed two times a month to get to Chechnya and to interview Chechen militants.

On the order of the president Shevardnadze the minister of Interior of Georgia took the investigation under his personal control. The investigators do not exclude that Russo's death is bound with his journalist activities in Chechnya. According to the investigators' version, Russo was obviously on his way to the Pankiss canyon or was returning from there. Nevertheless it is still unknown whether he was alone at the moment of his death and where his car had disappeared.

Representatives of the Italian embassy still don't give any comments, but as the reporter of the "Commersant" learned, on Wednesday a high-ranked officer of the Ministry for Foreign Affaires of Italia will arrive to Tbilisi. The body of the journalist will be transported to Rome by a special flight. Law and enforcement bodies of Georgia have invited their Italian collegues to take part in the investigation. The official Tbilisi states that Russo stayed in Georgia legally and he was accredited at the Ministry for Foreign Affaires as a reporter of the Italian mass-media covering the Southern Caucasus. Georgian authorities know nothing of his voyages to Chechnya. If there were any, they say, it was "a personal business of Mr. Russo".

GEORGY DVALI, Tbilisi