TRANSITION: PAUL KLEBNIKOV

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By Newsweek Editors

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On a Moscow street late Friday night, American journalist Paul Klebnikov was fatally shot after leaving his office at Forbes magazine. Klebnikov, 41, had overseen the launch in April of the magazine's new Russian edition, serving as editor in chief. Bleeding from four gunshot wounds, Klebnikov spoke to the editor of NEWSWEEK's Russian edition, Alexander Gordeev, whose publication shares office space with Forbes. Gordeev asked him who could have ordered the hit. "I don't know," Klebnikov answered. He took his last breaths in an ambulance on the way to a local hospital.

The scene has become familiar in President Vladimir Putin's Russia, and the culprits are rarely caught. Russia's top prosecutor vowed to personally lead the search for Klebnikov's killers, but in the 10 cases over the past four years in which journalists were murdered, not one has been solved.

The motives for the Klebnikov murder remain unclear, but Forbes Russia magazine publisher Leonid Bershidsky says there is "no doubt" it was work-related. Klebnikov had written hundreds of stories detailing the nexus of organized crime and politics in Russia, as well as a 2000 book on the alleged crimes of billionaire oligarch Boris Berezovsky. "Paul was one of the best," Bershidsky says. "He investigated a lot of scandals and made a lot of enemies."

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