- Date
- 10/05/1997
- First
- Alexander
- Surname
- Korkin
- Sex/Age
- M, 42
- Incident
- homicide
- Motive
- nJ
- Place
- flat
- Job
- director, publisher
- Medium
- Federal District Plus
- CENTRAL
- Street, Town, Region
- Pereslavl-Zalessky, Yaroslavl Region
- Freelance
- Local/National
- Other Ties
- Cause of Death
- murder, beaten
- Legal Qualification
- 105 (murder)??
- Impunity
- trial, conviction, 7 May 1998
Alexander Korkin was brutally murdered on 10 April 1997 by masked intruders who forced their way into his flat in Pereslavl-Zalessky a small town in the Yaroslavl Region. He was tortured before he died. Korkin, a member of the Russian Union of Journalists, had in recent years been engaged in the publishing business. After working for newspapers in the region Korkin became director of a private printing works.
It was the first murder of a professional journalist in the Yaroslavl Region, commented the Trud daily (14 May 1997) although threats of violence against those working in the media had been repeatedly made there by a variety of forces. Widely reported in the national press, the case was found to be one of criminal //extortion rather than direct pressure on the media.
The investigation, concluded in November, found that Korkin was the victim of a gang of five robbers who forced their way into the apartments of the city’s inhabitants and robbed them. The gang had been active in Pereslavl-Zalessky for several months but after Korkin’s murder the police was able to trace and arrest all of them. In May 1998 the Yaroslavl Region Court sentenced the gang members to terms of imprisonment up to 20 years. They had killed Korkin because he attempted to obstruct them.