18 Facts About Gadzhimurat Kamalov

Gadzhimurat Kamalov's death had a chilling effect on other journalists.

Gadzhimurat Kamalov, an ethnic Avar, was born in the village of Sogratl, in the Gunibsky District of Dagestan, Russia.

Gadzhimurat Kamalov was educated in engineering at the Dagestan Polytechnic Institute in 1982 and later at the Leningrad Technical University in 1990.

Gadzhimurat Kamalov began his journalism career by working at the New Business.

Gadzhimurat Kamalov was a member of the president's Council of Economic Advisers under President Magomedsalam Magomedov.

On 19 August 2003, Gadzhimurat Kamalov founded the newspaper Chernovik, which was well known for investigating government corruption in Dagestan.

Gadzhimurat Kamalov had been sought after as a high-profile terrorist target because of his involvement in the 1999 raid from Chechnya into Dagestan and a 2002 bombing that killed 40 people.

Gadzhimurat Kamalov could go off for some meeting with some frostbitten bandits and come back unharmed.

At one point, when Chernovik lost its financial backers, Gadzhimurat Kamalov took out loans using his flat as collateral, despite the fact that his wife and child lived there.

Gadzhimurat Kamalov would sell off office equipment, until he finally found new backers.

Besides being behind the news, Gadzhimurat Kamalov was often called on to be a source for media outlets who were looking for an expert to analyze the deteriorating situation in Dagestan.

On 28 June 2008, Gadzhimurat Kamalov told Ekho Moskvy, Moscow, that the security forces had killed three people who were not militants but one was a university educator whom Gadzhimurat Kamalov knew.

Gadzhimurat Kamalov once told me that if at any time they would come to his place, he would refuse to open the door.

On 26 September 2005, Gadzhimurat Kamalov organized an unprecedented protest in Makhachkala against the action of the Federal Agency for the Press and Mass Communication to stop the printing and distribution of issues of the Chernovik.

On 25 November 2011, Gadzhimurat Kamalov led a protest of somewhere between 3,000 and 5,700 participants against the unlawful use of force and the disappearance of civilians allegedly by security forces, an issue on which Chernovik has focused.

Gadzhimurat Kamalov had previously received death threats in September 2009 when he was one of eight journalists included in a hit list distributed anonymously in Makhachkala.

Gadzhimurat Kamalov had many enemies because of Chernovik's searching reports on corrupt businesses and the transgressions of the local siloviki [law enforcement bodies].

CPJ lists three journalists from Dagestan before Gadzhimurat Kamalov who have been killed since 2000 in Makhachkala:.