"SEGODNYA", Wednesday, October 18, 2000, N 234

Italian journalist was found dead near the capital of Georgia

On Monday in the evening the officers of the Georgian road police found the body of the Italian journalist Antonio Russo near the road close to the village Udzharma in the Gardaban region, 40 km to the east from Tbilisi. According to the conclusion of the forensic expert Mikhail Mzhavanadze, the cause of death which occured on October 16 about 2 a.m., were numerous fractures of ribs and injury of the lung which was possibly a result of blows delivered with a solid obtuse object. These traumas could be also a result of a car accident, stated the expert. According to the investigators, a wallet and a journalist identification card were found in the pockets of the dead. His satellite telephone and personal computer disappeared from the appartment he rented in a prestigious Tbilisi neighborhood Veriysky.

Law and enforcement bodies don't promulgate any versions for the present. But it is known that the supposition that the reporter was assassinated and not became a victim of a traffic accident is being examined with special attention. A well-known in Tbilisi expert on Caucasus problems Mamuka Areshidze who was a friend of the Italian, doesn't exclude that this death may be bound with professional duties of the reporter. The lost journalist collaborated with various radiostations and newspapers, collected materials in the contiguous to Chechnya Pankiss canyon of Georgia and had a close contact with the Chechen information center in the Georgian capital. Having arrived to Georgia last November, Russo wrote exclusively about Chechnya and the situation in the Pankiss canyon where everything is run by dubious figures of Chechen origin and local Kistins. Therefore the investigators don't exclude that the journalist could become a witness of some events in the Pankiss canyon and this cost him his life.

Besides that, there are too much criminal "elements" in the villages of the canyon who don't care whether Russo's reportages were pro-Chechen or he was against the separatists. He could be enticed from his appartment to take him as a hostage but on the way plans of the kidnappers changed.

The embassy of Italy in Tbilisi and the Ministry of Interior of Georgia don't comment the incident for the present. The Ministry of State Security of Georgia give negative responses to the questions whether the reporter could be secret services' agent. At the same time yesterday it became known that officers of Italian agencies joined the investigation of the circumstances of the death of Antonio Russo.

MIKHAIL VIGNANSKY, Tbilisi