Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov said Tuesday he was certain the assassination bid against one of his deputies was linked to the official's professional activities, according to the Interfax news agency.
Josef Ordzhonikidze, who is in charge of the Russian capital's foreign economic relations, obviously took some decision which angered a criminal group, Luzhkov said.
"He clearly crossed someone's path," Luzhkov said, denouncing the attack early Tuesday, which wounded Ordzhonikidze and killed his driver, as "an awful crime."
Gunmen opened fire on Ordzhonikidze's car shortly after 9:00 am (0600 GMT) right in the heart of the Russian capital, news agencies said.
Wielding a Kalashnikov, they lay in wait just a few hundred meters (yards) away from the Kremlin and sprayed his bullet-proofed Nissan car with armor-piercing bullets, ITAR-TASS said.
The mayor recalled that Ordzhonikidze, whose main task was dealing with major foreign investment projects, submitted all contracts to an open bidding process.
He added that city hall officials often received threats in connection with their work.
"A whole series of threats" were made after the mayor's office closed down a number of markets and cracked down on unlicensed vodka sales, Luzhkov said.
Luzhkov insisted that the mayor's office could not "take any extra security measures" to protect its staff.
"We simply don't have such possibilities," he said -- MOSCOW (AFP)
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