Murder incites speculation in media

  • 2004-05-27
  • By The Baltic Times
TALLINN – Estonia’s media on Wednesday was inundated with speculation on the murder of ethnic Russian Estonian businessman and former member of Tallinn City Council, Gennady Ever.

The Postimees daily speculated that the murder could have been revenge on the part of the Estonian underworld for Ever's unfulfilled promises to local crime lords. Anonymous sources told the paper that Ever's garrulous relations with several figures of the mob might have lead to the murder.
"Ever enjoyed their attention, he wanted to look influential and authoritative," a police source was quoted by the paper as saying. Police sources said one promise that Ever gave but never fulfilled to underworld boss Harun Dikayev was to obtain all necessary permits to build a mosque in Tallinn. Another possible motive for the death could be Ever's business ties to Russia. As the Postimees reported, Ever's partner in the restaurant business in Pskov, just across the border, was an ethnic Armenian businessman known as Rubik who had been active in Estonia in the early 1990s.
Rubik, who moved to Russia years ago, was assassinated in Pskov two months ago.
Eesti Paevaleht, another leading daily, has linked Ever's murder to the gunning down of Estonian media mogul Vitaly Haitov in front of his Tallinn home in 2001. Sources told the newspaper that Ever may have been killed by the underworld for being too open-mouthed and telling his acquaintances how he ordered the murder of Haitov for Dikayev, an ethnic Chechen. The paper said that this was why Ever recently sold most of his business interests and real estate in Estonia and moved to Russia.
Ever was shot seven times by a Kalashnikov equipped with a silencer in Pskov on Tuesday morning.