U.S. Editor of Russian Edition of Forbes Magazine Shot to Death

The American editor of Forbes magazine’s Russian edition, who also wrote a book about tycoon Boris Berezovsky, was shot to death Friday, the magazine said.

Paul Klebnikov, 41, was hit four times outside the magazine’s office and died in a rescue-squad vehicle, Russian news reports said. Echo of Moscow radio said shells of two different caliber weapons were found at the scene.

Police could not be reached for comment, but the killing was confirmed in a statement by the magazine’s publisher, Steve Forbes.

“Paul was a superb reporter -- courageous, dedicated, ever-curious,” the statement said. “He knew Russia well. It was a country he deeply loved.”

The Interfax news agency said Alexander Gordeyev, editor of the Russian edition of Newsweek magazine, which has offices in the same building as Forbes, came to Klebnikov’s side moments after the shooting.

“I asked Paul several times what he was thinking, why this could have happened. Paul said he didn’t know. He said several times that nothing suspicious had happened to him recently,” Gordeyev was quoted as saying.

Forbes started its Russian-language edition in April. The U.S.-born Klebnikov, who was of Russian heritage, previously was a senior editor with the U.S.-based Forbes.

In May, the magazine attracted wide attention by publishing a list of Russia’s wealthiest people, claiming that more billionaires worked in Moscow or had amassed their fortunes there than in any other city in the world.

Klebnikov’s 2000 book, “Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia,” described how the tycoon, now living in exile in Britain, allegedly siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars out of Russia.