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'Skategate' Official iced
 MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- A gunman shot and killed a former Russian sports official who was allegedly linked to the fixing of figure skating results at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Tuesday, citing police officials. Chevalier Nusuyev, former president of the Russian youth sports federation, died shortly after being taken to a hospital following the attack in southwest Moscow late Monday, the report said. The unidentified assailant fired on him as he left his office, then escaped in a car. Moscow police did not immediately confirm the killing. Nusuyev was allegedly linked to reputed Russian mobster Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who in 2003 escaped extradition from Italy to the United States on charges of fixing the figure skating results. Tokhtakhounov spent nearly a year in a Venice, Italy, prison until June 2003 on U.S. charges that he helped secure a gold medal for Russia's Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze in the pairs competition at Salt Lake City in exchange for a victory by the French ice dancing team of Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat. | Our friends the French, again. |
The charges Tokhtakhounov faced were based mainly on wiretapped telephone conversations, including with a man identified in Italian police transcripts as "Chevalie" -- allegedly Nusuyev. | I'll wager Alimzhan thinks Nusuyev had something to do with his time in the slammer, and settled the score. So sad. |
Nusuyev said he was in Salt Lake City for the games but denied any involvement in the alleged fixing scandal, dubbed "Skategate."
Posted by: Steve 2005-08-30 |
