Publisher Murdered at Moscow Home

Detectives are investigating the brutal murder of the deputy head of the Russian arm of a major European publishing company, who was stabbed to death in her Moscow dacha with an antique dagger.

Marina Pisareva, 47, was found dead on Sunday morning at her house in the quiet, pine-forested Odintsovo district, just west of Moscow, prosecutors said yesterday. She had been stabbed in the neck and chest. Detectives discovered the murder weapon, a rare dagger taken from Pisareva's country home, at the scene.

Pisareva worked for the German media giant Bertelsmann AG as deputy head of its Russian publishing house. Prosecutors said her killing could have been linked to her professional activities.

Her murder comes after the deaths of several journalists in Russia, including Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of the Kremlin who was shot dead last year outside her Moscow flat, and Paul Klebnikov, the US editor of the Russia edition of Forbes magazine.

"Early reports suggest that nothing was stolen from her home. A knife from the murdered woman's private collection is believed to be the murder weapon," prosecutor's told the Russian news agency Interfax.

Bertelsmann is one of the biggest and most influential media companies in Europe. It owns Random House publishers and the RTL broadcasting group that has television channels and radio stations in 10 countries across Europe. The Russian operation publishes consumer magazines. A spokesman for Bertelsmann in Germany confirmed that Pisareva had been killed.

RTL is Europe's largest broadcaster. It has a 30% stake in REN-TV, an entertainment-oriented Russian channel that has come under the control of Kremlin-friendly businesses in the past two years.

It used to be critical of Vladimir Putin's regime but, like other hostile TV channels in Russia, has been swallowed up by new owners supportive of the president.