"According to preliminary estimates police suspect that Valery Radchikov is involved in the murder" of Mikhail Likhodey on Thursday, said Igor Zyrulnikov, a spokesman for Moscow police. It is rare for police to identify a suspect so soon after a capital crime is committed.
Radchikov, a colonel of the Main Intelligence Department, headed the fund from May 1991 to August 1993 until he was replaced by Likhodey.
Fund authorities also said they suspected that Radchikov was involved. Neither police nor fund officials could give the whereabouts of the suspect.
Zyrulnikov said both men had served in Afghanistan during the war and had become invalids as a result.
The police official said Likhodey, 42, and his bodyguard, Valery Nurin, were killed when a bomb exploded on the first floor of Likhodey's house in southern Moscow.
Zyrulnikov said Likhodey's wife, Yelena Krasnolutskaya, and a second bodyguard had received minor wounds.
Gennady Safronov, head of the fund's inspection committee, said in a phone interview with The Moscow Times that fund officials also "suspect" that Radchikov planned and carried out the bomb attack with the help of friends.
"We know that Radchikov was involved in illegal financial deals with different commercial companies when he was head of the fund," Safronov said.
Safronov said the fund is exempt from taxes, sometimes resulting in the involvement of "unscrupulous" companies. He added that Radchikov negotiated agreements with companies valued at $800 million, and that inspections showed $80 million was missing.
The fund said in a statement that after Likhodey replaced Radchikov, the new leader had started "a decisive fight" against "lawlessness, corruption and embezzlement" within the organization.
Safronov said they had appealed to the Interior Ministry, the Federal Counterintelligence Service, the Military Prosecutor's Office and the Supreme Court to investigate the alleged deals.
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