Russian Editor Faces Sack Over Beslan Coverage

The editor of one of Russia's leading business weeklies may be fired after he criticised President Vladimir Putin's handling of the Beslan school tragedy.

The owner of Kompaniya will ask shareholders to vote on plans to dismiss Andrei Grigoryev at a meeting next month after falling out with him over the title's editorial policy.

If the plan is approved, Grigoryev will be the second editor of a major Russian publication to be sacked over coverage of the siege, which resulted in the deaths of 329 people - many of them children.

Three weeks ago, Raf Shakirov was dismissed as the editor of Russia's best known daily, Izvestiya, two days after the newspaper carried strong criticism of the government's handling of the Beslan seige.

National Reserve Corporation, the publishing company that owns Kompaniya, has accused Grigoryev of hiding information about the magazine from shareholders - an accusation he denies.

But Grigoryev, who founded the magazine, insists he cannot legally be fired as its editor and has accused the company of bowing to pressure from the Kremlin.

"When shareholders start to try and influence the editorial decisions of a magazine it is, of course, an attempt at assassination of press freedom," he told the Times.

There are growing concerns about press freedom in Russia following the crisis in Beslan, with two journalists claiming they were poisoned in an effort to hamper their reporting of the siege.

Anna Politkovskaya, a respected Russian investigative reporter, fell ill after drinking tea given to her on an aeroplane, while Nana Lezhava, from Georgia's independent Rustavi-2 TV station, believes she was given tranquillisers after being detained by the Russian authorities.

Lezhava was arrested with a colleague on suspicion of violating visa rules but was never charged.