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Former KGB boss killed in Moscow
 Police were investigating multiple theories Monday in the assassination of a former top intelligence official and his wife, who were gunned down by unknown assailants in Moscow. Anatoly Trofimov, a 65-year-old former deputy chief of the Federal Security Service under President Boris Yeltsin, was shot in his sports utility vehicle around 7:30 p.m. Sunday on a street in the northern part of the Russian capital. He died at the scene. His 28-year-old wife died Monday morning, after being hospitalized in a critical condition, Interfax reported. Their daughter, who was also in the car, was reportedly unharmed. There were conflicting reports as to her age.The car was fired on by assailants armed with automatic weapons, from a small car, news reports said. NTV cited witnesses as seeing a masked man in a leather jacket and black hair run up to Trofimov and fire several times. State-run Rossiya television, citing unnamed regional law enforcement officials, said the attack was a contract killing related to Trofimov's business dealings. However, Alexander Litvinenko, a former top official in the Federal Security Service, or FSB, said on Ekho Moskvy radio that the killing was political. "I don't believe that ... Trofimov was killed for commercial activities," Litvinenko said according to a transcript posted on Ekho Moskvyi's web site. "In today's Russia not one businessman under any circumstances would raise their hand against a general of the FSB." Trofimov "was against the war in Chechnya, although he never, of course, spoke openly on this question. He was also against naming Putin to the post of FSB head," Litvinenko said. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-04-11 |
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