Former KGB spy shot dead in Moscow

Shabtai von Kalmanovic killed while his car was stopped at traffic lights, in what police say was a professional hit

·         Luke Harding in Moscow

·         http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/03/former-kgb-agent-shot-dead

Detectives in Russia are investigating the murder of a former KGB agent who was gunned down in Moscow yesterday, in the latest contract killing on the streets of the Russian capital.

Shabtai von Kalmanovic, a businessman, concert promoter and former spy, died in a hail of bullets in the passenger seat of his luxury S500 Mercedes. His killers had waited for his car to stop at traffic lights - a classic assassin's tactic - before opening fire, hitting him 10 times.

This morning police said there was no doubt that Kalmanovic had been the victim of a meticulous professional hit, carried out by two gunmen who fled the scene in an unmarked Lada Priora. His driver was injured in the shooting, which took place not far from Vladimir Putin's Moscow office.

Vladimir Markin, of the investigating committee of Russia's procurator, said forensic experts had recovered 19 bullets from the scene of the shooting, which was carried out at 4.40pm Moscow time yesterday.

"There's no doubt this was a contract-style crime," Markin said. "At the moment we are working on several theories of his killing. But the most probable one is linked to his business activities."

Detectives said it was too early to establish a motive. Today's Russian newspapers pored over the businessman's colourful past, which included a long spell in an Israeli jail following a cold war conviction for espionage, in search of possible clues.

Born in Soviet Lithuania, Kalmanovic emigrated to Israel with his parents in 1971. By the late 1980s he had become one of the wealthiest members of Israel's Russian diaspora. The source of his riches appeared linked to construction. In 1987, however, Israel unmasked him as a Soviet spy and sentenced him to nine years.

Kalmanovic emerged from prison in 1993 following the intervention of the Russian government. Back in Moscow, he became a leading promoter, organising shows for Michael Jackson, Tom Jones and Liza Minnelli. He was also a passionate basketball fan, and became general manager of Russia's national women's team.

Lurking in the background, however, were more shady connections. According to the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, Kalmanovic invited Russia's notorious mafia boss Vyascheslav Ivankov to his daughter's wedding. Ivankov, known by his nickname Yaponchik, was himself gunned down in Moscow this summer while leaving a Thai restaurant. He died of his injuries in October.

"All of Shabtai's relatives are in shock," his artist friend Vladimir Vinokur told Vedomosti. "They are all in tears. I've just talked to his daughter. Everybody is in a terrible state ... He had a lot of friends. He was extremely attentive to everybody, and gave presents and flowers. A cheerful, touching person."

Two reporters from the paper recalled how they interviewed the ex-KGB man last year in his office decorated with Soviet realist art. He said he was also a keen collector of Russian porcelain, a hobby he said he shared with Vladimir Nekrasov, a millionaire Russian businessman arrested and jailed last year.

Contract killings are a frequent occurrence in Moscow, and those who order them are seldom if ever caught. In January a hitman shot dead the human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov not far from the Kremlin, mortally wounding a young journalist, Anastasia Baburova, who was walking with him towards the metro.

Late last year killers ambushed Ruslan Yamadayev, an enemy of Chechnya's pro-Kremlin president, Ramzan Kadyrov, after his car stopped at traffic lights next to the British embassy in Moscow and on the embankment of the Moscow river. Yamadayev also died in a hail of bullets, close to the embassy's statue of Sherlock Holmes.