Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged on Monday to take all efforts to find and punish those involved in the killing of a Moscow judge earlier in the day.
Eduard Chuvashov, 47, died in the stairwell of an apartment block from bullet wounds to the chest and head. The killer fled the scene immediately after the attack at 8:50 a.m. Moscow time (04:50 GMT).
"Everything that is necessary will be done so that the organizers and performers of this cynical killing are found and punished," the Russian president said in a message to the head of the Moscow City Court, Olga Yegorova.
A criminal case into the murder and illegal possession of firearms has been opened. The Russian Investigative Committee said the incident was thought to be linked to the judge's professional activities, although a motive for the crime had not been established.
Medvedev said Chuvashov "was respected... as a competent lawyer in the legal community, who honestly served the law, performed his duties with responsibility and adherence to principles."
The Moscow City Court's website states that on Monday Chuvashov was supposed to be looking into the case of Vladimir Belashev, a former member of the Interior Ministry department in charge of fighting organized crime, who was accused of taking part in the bombings of two statues near Moscow.
Belashev was arrested in April 1998, and was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment for terrorism. In 2008, an EU court in Strasbourg ordered Russia pay 10,000 euros ($13,612) in compensation to Belashev after he complained that he had spent five years waiting sentencing.
Chuvashov was previously involved in a number of controversial cases.
Chuvashov's killing has sparked comparisons with the shooting in broad daylight of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova in Moscow last year.
The human rights lawyer and Novaya Gazeta reporter were shot on January 19, 2009, in downtown Moscow, just a short distance from the Christ the Savior Cathedral. Markelov died at the scene and Baburova lost her struggle for life shortly afterwards in hospital.
Last November, two members of a radical neo-Nazi nationalist group, Nikolai Tikhonov and Yevgenia Khasis, were charged with the murders.
MOSCOW, April 12 (RIA Novosti)
