Bodyguard Kills Russian Lawmaker on Campaign Trail

A lawmaker was shot and killed by his bodyguard while campaigning in eastern Siberia, becoming the fourth member of the Russian Parliament to be killed in less than two years. The bodyguard then shot and wounded himself.

Lawmaker Sergei Markidonov, 34, was shot in the head in his hotel room Saturday night in Petrovsk Zabailsky, near the Siberian city of Chita, 2,700 miles east of Moscow, the Interior Ministry said.

Markidonov, who was campaigning for the Dec. 17 parliamentary elections, and a local bodyguard had been drinking heavily before the shooting, Interior Ministry spokesman Pyotr Benzyak said. After killing the lawmaker, the 31-year-old bodyguard identified only as Fyodorov shot himself, Benzyak said. He is being treated at a local hospital.

It was not clear if the two knew each other before Markidonov’s visit to the eastern Siberian town.

Markidonov was an economist and member of the reformist Stable Russia party. He was elected to Russia’s lower house of Parliament, the Duma, in 1993 and was a member of the committee on privatization and economic activities.

Legislators have become frequent targets in Russia, and many now carry arms or have bodyguards.

Sergei Skorochkin, a member of ultranationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky’s party, was shot to death in February. Last November, Communist Party deputy Valentin Martemyanov died after he was beaten by robbers. Lawmaker Andrei Aizderdzis was shot and killed in April, 1994, outside his Moscow home.