Gunmen shot dead a prominent Russian businessman in his car on Monday a few hundred metres from the seat of Russia's government, state investigators said. Skip related content
Shabtai von Kalmanovic, a businessman and president of the Spartak female basketball club, died at the scene, investigators from the state prosecutor's office said in a statement.
More than 20 shots were fired at the car outside Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's office at the Russian White House, the government headquarters, it said.
The killers fled in a car and Kalmanovic's driver, who was wounded, gave chase but had to abandon it because of his wounds.
Moscow and other Russian cities were hit by a wave of gangland-style shootings after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union as businessmen sought to settle disputes and carve up profits.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Andrew Dobbie)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The pandemic of swine flu may be hitting a peak in the Northern Hemisphere, global health officials said on Friday, but they cautioned it was far from over.
