Russia reopens case of dead journalist

MOSCOW (dpa) – Police are reopening the case of a Russian opposition journalist and politician seven years after his mysterious death, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

It quoted a spokesman for the investigators as saying the man, Yuri Shtshekoshishin, might have been murdered. The journalist worked for the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which also employed investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006.

Former Soviet president and Nobel Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev welcomed the new investigation. Gorbachev, who co-founded of the newspaper, said he hoped the case would be finally resolved.

Shtshekoshishin died in July 2003 of what was at the time described as water on the brain. Political allies voiced the suspicion he had been poisoned because of his reporting about corruption.