BBC News Online: World: Europe

Russian editor shot dead

The editor-in-chief of a newspaper in the Volga region of central Russia has been shot dead in what reports suggest was a contract killing.

The victim, Valery Ivanov, was fired at near his home in the town of Tolyatti, where he edited the local paper Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye.

He was the fifth journalist from the town to be killed in unexplained circumstances in recent years.

Mr Ivanov's paper had regularly investigated drug-dealing in Tolyatti and gang-land activity linked to the Volga motor works.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service