BISHKEK -- Kyrgyz police say they have found the pistol used to shoot dead journalist Alisher Saipov in 2007, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.
Kumar Chaldanbaev, the press secretary of the state Drug Control Agency, told RFE/RL that the Makarov pistol and 16 kilograms of opium were confiscated from a drug trafficker in Kyrgyzstan's Leylek region at the end of February.
Chaldanbaev said ballistic tests now confirm that the pistol was used by the person who killed Saipov, 26. Saipov was gunned down in the southern city of Osh in October 2007 as he left work.
The ballistics experts say the same pistol was also used at a shoot-out at Bishkek's Kho nightclub in 2007.