Russian executive shot dead in central Moscow: report

A Russian businessman was murdered in a daytime shooting in the stairwell of his apartment building in central Moscow, the RIA Novosti news agency reported Tuesday, citing police.

The businessman, who headed a firm called Gold Bear, drove himself to the hospital despite bullet wounds to his head and shoulder after the shooting Monday, a police source told the agency.

But he later died in hospital, it said. The nature of his firm and the name of the businessman was not immediately known.

“An unknown assailant attacked the businessman in the stairwell of his home… after which the victim drove himself to a medical centre in his own car,” RIA Novosti cited the unnamed police source as saying.

Russia became notorious after the break-up of the Soviet Union for the number of contract killings of businessmen carried out by a shady criminal underworld.

The incidence of such killings in Moscow has lessened since the chaotic days of the 1990s but is still relatively common.