By RIA Novosti,
Vladikavkaz (Russia) : The mayor of Vladikavkaz, capital of the volatile south Russian republic of North Ossetia, Wednesday succumbed in a hospital here to injuries he sustained in an attack earlier in the day.
“[Vitaly] Karayev died from a bullet wound to his heart,” a hospital official said.
The police said Karayev was fatally wounded by a sniper’s bullet near his house. The mayor was rushed to hospital following the shooting.
“There was a single bullet hole in the door of his vehicle. Presumably it was a single sniper shot which proved fatal,” he said.
No other details of the incident were available except that the country’s top investigation body has opened a criminal investigation into the killing.
The head of the Investigation Committee at the Prosecutor General’s Office has taken the investigation under his personal control. Experts have been sent to the North Caucasus republic to help local sleuths.
Karayev’s deputy, Mairam Tamayev, was injured on Oct 22, when an explosive device planted under his car went off. Investigators said the explosion was not sufficiently powerful to kill the official and was presumably meant to be a warning to Tamayev.