Former High-Ranking Chechen Official Gunned Down

25 June 2004 -- A former high-ranking member of the Kremlin-backed Chechen administration was killed in a central Moscow street today.
Jan Sergunin served as deputy prime minister of Chechnya and chief of staff for the late Chechen leader, Akhmed-hadji Kadyrov, in 2001-2003.

ITAR-TASS reports an assailant on a motorcycle fired several shots at the former Chechen official as he and his wife left a restaurant. Sergunin's wife was gravely wounded in the attack.

A Moscow police spokesman said investigators were treating the killing as a contract murder.

(AP/ITAR-TASS)