Head of TV station murdered

Reporters Without Borders expressed its concern today at the murder of Tigran Naghdalian, head of Armenia's public TV station, and called on the authorities to clarify the matter as quickly as possible. Naghdalian, 36, who also presented a political commentary programme called "Orakarg," was shot dead by a mystery gunman in front of his parents' home in the capital, Yerevan, on 28 December and died in hospital an hour and a half later. President Robert Kocharian called an emergency meeting with top security officials the same day to investigate the killing. Naghdalian, a leading Kocharian supporter, had been a key figure at the station since 1998 and had managed to turn it into a profitable operation. He began his journalistic career in 1990 on the station's "Haylur" programme, which was closed by the authorities a year later. He then headed the news agency Haylur before setting up another, called Fact, in 1994. From 1995 to 1997, he worked for the Armenian section of the US station Radio Liberty.