Journalists

Date: 18/03/2010
First: Maxim
Surname: ZUYEV
Sex/Age: M, 35
Incident: homicide
Motive: nJ
Place: apartment
Job: journalist
Medium: press and internet
Federal District Plus: NORTHWEST
Street, Town, Region: Kaliningrad
Freelance: yes
Local/National: local, "Kaliningradskaya pravda" newspaper
Other Ties: blogger
Cause of Death: stabbed to death
Legal Qualification: Article 105 ("Murder") of the RF Criminal Code
Impunity: trial, conviction

KILLER SENTENCED TO 11 YEARS IMPRISONMENT (July 2010)

19-year-old Roman Zhitkov, who stabbed the popular Kaliningrad journalist and blogger Maxim Zuyev to death in March this year, and then stole the deceased’s watch, mobile phone and money (more than 33,000 roubles) has been sentenced to 11 years imprisonment in a strict regime penal colony. Zhitkov was arrested a month after Zuyev’s body was found.

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MURDER (March 2010)

The prominent journalist and blogger Maxim Zuyev, earlier reported missing, was found dead in Kaliningrad on 18 March 2010 with several stab wounds to his neck and body. Criminal proceedings were launched on homicide charges under Article 105.1 (murder) of the RF Criminal Code, a spokesperson for the regional Investigative Committee told the RIA Novosti news agency. It has been established that the journalist had rented the flat where his body was found for about a month, together with an expensive car of a foreign make.

The police say Zuyev was seen for the last time on 13 March. He was formerly a media community celebrity in the Region - a reporter for the "Kaliningradskaya Pravda" and "Strana Kaliningrad" newspapers, one of the region's first promoters of the Live Journal (kenig.livejournal.com), a moderator for the journalistic society "Koenigsberg", and the organizer of the web competition, "The Amber Cobweb".

According to some reports, during the past few months Maxim Zuyev gave up journalism in favour of private business and moved to another city, only occasionally returning to Kaliningrad to visit his parents.

GDF Digest (No. 470), 22 March 2010

AN EVENT IN 2003

In 1999 Maxim Zuyev received a prize from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), says the FRI website (the "Physiognomy of the Russian Internet", http://ezhe/fri/357 ). Four years later, however, he was one of many local media figures called in by the Region’s police to explain how they obtained an anonymous letter from “disgruntled” policemen. Zuyev had posted it on his blog.

“Boris Gryzlov is not very happy himself,” commented Grani.ru, in recounting the background. In 2003, in the run-up to the Duma elections, the then Minister of Internal Affairs allowed his PR team to promote an expose of ‘werewolves in uniforms’, i.e. corruption within the police. Now whatever region he decided to visit he found that the media locally thought it their duty to publish something on the subject (“We’ve also found some werewolves”). As experience was to show, the MIA did not appreciate such initiative. The journalists were punished.

In mid-October, on the eve of Gryzlov’s visit to Kaliningrad, twelve local media outlets received a letter from “a group of honest law-enforcement agents”, making allegations that their superiors were hand in glove with organised crime. On 20 October Internet journalist Maxim Zuyev, who published the letter on his blog, was summoned by the police to give evidence about these Internet accusations, directed particularly against Sergei Kirichenko who moved to the enclave in 2000 from Volgograd to become the Region's police chief.

First, Kirichenko himself talked to Zuyev. Then Alexander Ganza, security section head of the Regional police, took over. Before they began talking General Kirichenko himself checked that Zuyev was not wired for sound.

Zhenya Snechkina, 11 November 2003, grani.ru
http://grani.ru/Society/Media/Freepress/m.50153.html

“THE MURDER IS SOLVED”

Law-enforcement agencies in the Kaliningrad Region say they have solved the murder of local blogger and businessman Maxim Zuyev, whose body was found on 18 March in a flat on Krasnaya Street. “The suspect is a 19-year-old inhabitant of the city’s Bagrationovsky district,” Marianna Andryushina, spokesperson for the Region’s Investigative Committee, told the media on 12 April. “He has repeatedly faced criminal charges for a variety of offences, some committed when he was still under-age. [...]

“The investigation and detective work carried out jointly by our committee and the police led to the young man’s arrest,” said Andryushina. “Investigators believe that when the suspect was inside Zuyev’s flat for the purpose of providing sexual services he quarrelled with the latter and struck him several times with a knife. Then, having stolen some of the dead man’s belongings, he fled the scene of the crime.”

Gazeta.ru, RIA Novosti, 12 April 2010