The owner of a website opposing the Kremlin-backed leadership of Russia's troubled Ingushetia region-scene of a recently failed separatist uprising-was shot and killed by law enforcement officials there today. Magomed Yevloyev, who ran the site www.Ingushetiya.ru, had just touched down at the airport after a trip to Moscow when police took him into custody and drove away with him in a Volga. Inside the car, Yevloyev was shot in the temple. The authorities don't even deny it, coming up with an excuse that will be quite familiar to film fans.

Using the "Vincent Vega Defense" the Prosecutor General's Office in Moscow claims that the gun accidentally went off inside the car, and just happened to hit Yevloyev directly in his brain. Though that doesn't explain why, as his friend contends, the police tossed his body into the street near a local hospital and sped off. "It was in no way a mistake," says the friend.

The article notes that, "Magomed Yevloyev is one of the most high-profile journalists to be killed in Russia since investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead near her Moscow apartment in 2006, provoking condemnation of Russia's record on media freedom." [Reuters]