Kremlin critic shot in Ingushetia

Yevloyev’s website is said to be one of the most visited for Ingush news

The owner of an internet site critical of the Russian authorities in the volatile region of Ingushetia has been shot dead in police custody.

Magomed Yevloyev, owner of the ingushetiya.ru site, was a vocal critic of the region’s administration.

The Russian prosecutor’s office said an investigation into the death had been launched, Russia media report.

A post on Yevloyev’s site says he was detained by police after landing at the airport of the main town, Nazran.

The website owner was taken to hospital but died from his injuries.

Reports quoting local police said Yevloyev had tried to seize a policeman’s gun when he was being led to a vehicle. A shot was fired and Yevloyev was injured in the head.

Fierce critic

Yevloyev was a thorn in the side of Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, a former KGB general.

His website reported on alleged Russian security force brutality in Ingushetia, an impoverished province of some half a million people, mostly Muslims, which is now more turbulent than neighboring Chechnya.

President Zyazikov had been on the same flight as Yevloyev.

Ingushetia borders Chechnya and has suffered from overflowing unrest.

There is a low-level insurgency, with regular small-scale ambushes against police and soldiers.

In June 2008, the Human Rights Watch group accused Russian security forces there of carrying out widespread human rights abuses.

HRW said it had documented dozens of arbitrary detentions, disappearances, acts of torture and extra-judicial executions.

Italy police probe monastery raid

Police suspect the attackers were looking for money

Italian police are investigating a brutal attack on four Franciscan friars in a monastery in northern Italy.

Italian media are comparing Tuesday’s attack, at the San Colombano Belmonte monastery near Turin, to the violence in the story A Clockwork Orange.

Three or four hooded attackers entered the monastery and bound and gagged the friars, the oldest of whom was 86.

One managed to raise the alarm two hours later, when he regained consciousness after being beaten.

“They unleashed an incredible level of violence against them,” Gabriele Trivellin, in charge of Franciscan friars in the area, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

“It was wild and gratuitous violence because they did not resist the attack at all,” he said.

The youngest friar injured – 49-year-old Sergio Baldin – is currently in hospital in a coma after suffering severe head injuries. The other three, who range in age from 76 to 86, are expected to be released from hospital in a month.

Police believe the motive may have been robbery, as some cash was stolen from the monastery during the attack.

But the only object of great value in the building – a golden crown which decorates a statue of the Madonna – was placed behind protective glass after the original was stolen two years ago.

New quake hits Chinese province

An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 has struck Sichuan province in China, the US Geological Survey says.

The quake struck just before 1800 (1000 GMT), 48km (30 miles) north-west of Guangyuan city, and occurred at a depth of 10km (6.2 miles), the agency said.

No injuries have been reported from the scene. In May, about 70,000 people died when an 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan province.

Since then, thousands of aftershocks have rattled the region.

The epicentre of Tuesday’s earthquake was some 1,253km (778 miles) south-west of the Chinese capital, Beijing, where the Olympic Games are due to begin on Friday.

The quake came a few hours after the Olympic torch was paraded through Sichuan’s provincial capital, Chengdu, the last leg of its journey before it returns to Beijing for the opening ceremony.

The state media agency Xinhua said the tremors were felt in Chengdu.

Major reconstruction efforts have been under way in Sichuan province since the 12 May earthquake left about five million people homeless.