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Starovoitova Investigation Suspended

The Federal Security Service has suspended its investigation into the 1998 murder of liberal State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova without finding the person who ordered the killing, the slain politician's former aide said.

Ruslan Linkov, who was injured in the attack on Starovoitova, said the FSB's St. Petersburg branch had notified him that the investigation was being suspended and would only be reopened if new leads appeared or if suspects emerged from hiding, Interfax reported.

Linkov expressed outrage that the FSB had closed its investigation without locating former Duma Deputy Mikhail Glushchenko, whom one witness identified in court testimony as the person who ordered Starovoitova's murder.

Glushchenko, who represented the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party in the Duma and is thought to be a leader of the Tambov crime group, reputedly lives abroad.

Starovoitova was killed in the stairwell of her apartment building in 1998.

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