Moscow Times, Russia
July 19 2004

Magazine Editor Murdered

By Carl Schreck

Staff Writer The Armenian editor of a Russian-language magazine
focusing on Armenian issues was beaten and stabbed to death Saturday,
and his body dumped on the outskirts of Moscow, police said.

Pail Peloyan, editor of Armyansky Pereulok, was found dead with knife
wounds to the chest and severe trauma to the head at 7 a.m. Saturday
just outside the Moscow Ring Road on the southwestern edge of the
city, a city police spokesman told Interfax. He died between 2 a.m.
and 3 a.m.

Deputy city prosecutor Alexander Krokhmal said investigators were at
the crime scene Saturday, Interfax reported.

No one answered the telephone Sunday at the City Prosecutor’s Office.
The newspaper Gazeta reported on its web site that investigators were
not excluding the possibility that the murder was connected to
Peloyan’s journalistic work.

Peloyan was the second magazine editor to be killed in Moscow in a
little over a week. On July 9, Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov
was shot by unknown assailants.

Their publications, however, could not be more different.

Armyansky Pereulok had a circulation of 1,000 and covered harmless
topics ranging from Armenian history to Russian-Armenian friendship,
said Levon Osepyan, a well-known Armenian author and the magazine’s
founder.

“It was a friendly magazine,” Osepyan said by telephone Sunday.
Osepyan said he has had no connection with the magazine for over a
year and a half and that he did not know Peloyan.

Armyansky Pereulok has not released an issue since 2002 due to
financial difficulties, Gazeta.ru reported. The web site cited a
source close to the magazine’s publishing house as saying Peloyan
“was only nominally the editor.” It was unclear whether the source
was referring to the two-year lull in the magazine’s output or
something else.

The source said Peloyan’s death was likely “connected to his business
activities, which he preferred to keep quiet.”

Armen Gevondyan, spokesman for the Armenian Embassy in Moscow, told
Interfax on Saturday that the embassy is in contact with the Russian
authorities regarding the murder.