Dangerous Guest

The ITAR-TASS department manager, investigators believe, was the victim of a domestic quarrel.

The executive director and business manager of the ITAR-TASS news agency, Anatoly Voronin (pictured), was found dead yesterday afternoon in his apartment in the center of Moscow. Forensic experts found six stab wounds on his body. The Moscow prosecutor's office took over the investigation into the murder. At the same time, detectives almost immediately rejected the version of a contract killing, believing that the motive for the tragedy was most likely a domestic incident.

The body of the agency's business manager was discovered by his colleagues. As ITAR-TASS reported yesterday, on Monday Anatoly Voronin was supposed to return to work after his vacation. The driver of the official car, who in the morning arrived at the entrance to the property manager’s house in Bolshoi Kondratyevsky Lane, 8, waited for the boss for three hours, after which he arrived at the agency and reported that Mr. Voronin had not come down to the car and was not answering calls on his mobile phone. Together with the driver, his secretary then went to Mr. Voronin’s home. At about one o'clock in the afternoon, having gone up to the third floor, they found the door of the manager's apartment open, and when they went inside, they found the owner lying in one of the rooms on the floor in a pool of blood. However, according to eyewitnesses, there were no visible signs of robbery in the apartment. Moreover, when examining the apartment, detectives found a large amount of money lying openly in the closet.

Doctors stated that the death of the ITAR-TASS manager was the result of multiple stab wounds. Deputy Prosecutor of the capital Alexey Grigoriev went to the scene of the incident along with investigators, and the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal case into the murder. At the same time, the deputy prosecutor noted that the investigation does not consider as the main version the connection between the murder of Mr. Voronin and his professional activities. “The main motive for which the case is now being investigated is murder on domestic grounds or from personal hostile relationships,” Mr. Grigoriev emphasized. --- The investigation believes that there was a person familiar to Voronin in the apartment and it was he who committed the murder.”

He was registered as a property manager and lived alone in the apartment. In the room where Voronin’s body was found, according to detectives, there was a table set with a bowl of fruit, wine, and wine glasses, one of which had a trace of lipstick on it. Detectives intend to find the killer by studying the printout of calls that Voronin made that day and checking the circle of his close acquaintances.

According to colleagues, Anatoly Voronin worked at the agency for 23 years - since 1983. In 1999, he was awarded the medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II degree, by the first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, and in October 2004, the medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, I degree. Condolences in connection with the tragic death of Voronin were expressed to his relatives and colleagues by the Governor of the Moscow Region Boris Gromov, the head of Rospechat Mikhail Seslavinsky, and the National Association of Television and Radio Broadcasters.

Tatiana GRITSENKO