Kholodov, 27, died Oct. 17 last year when a booby-trapped briefcase bomb exploded at the daily's office. He had collected the briefcase at Moscow's Kazan Station following a call from a contact at the Federal Counterintelligence Service, or FSK -- since renamed the Federal Security Service.
He had been investigating corruption at top levels of the Western Group of the Russian Army before he was killed, shortly before he was to reveal his findings to the State Duma's defense committee.
The paper's editor in chief, Pavel Gusev, has accused the FSK and the Defense Ministry of complicity in the murder. Both offices have vehemently denied the accusations, and Defense Minister Pavel Grachev said the murder had been a provocation against him, adding that Kholodov had been used in this campaign and had lied in his reporting of Grachev's dealings in the Western Group.
At Tuesday's presentation of a memorial plaque to honor the reporter, Gusev threatened to take the search into his own hands, Itar-Tass reported. Gusev said that unless the Prosecutor General's Office produced results soon, the paper would publish the name of Kholodov's killer, based on research by his colleagues.
As candles flickered in a small Moscow church Monday, the priest appealed to the congregation to pray rather than seek revenge on Kholodov's killers.
But the reporter's colleagues and supporters seemed unforgiving as they filed out of the church. Many were crying, but grief at Kholodov's death was mixed with bitterness at the lack of results given by the Prosecutor General's Office following a year-long investigation of the murder.
"This investigation is at a dead end," said Kholodov's colleague, Alexei Overchuk. "I'm more than certain that there'll be no result to any of these investigations."
Kholodov's readers were as disappointed as his colleagues. "I liked his articles and I've been coming here to pray for him all year," said Nikolai Lisin, 47. "But nothing that makes any sense is going to come out of these investigations and that makes me angry."
The reporter's friends and relatives continued their tribute to Kholodov on Tuesday, when they unveiled a memorial to him at the Troyekurovskoye cemetery.
Moskovsky Komsomolets devoted Tuesday's front page entirely to photographs of the reporter, with the headline, "Dima, We Remember You," written above the paper's title. It listed the names of 32 other journalists killed in the former Soviet Union in the last year.
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