Immediately after the shooting, investigators work around the body of Shabatti Kalmanovich, who worked in Moscow as director of the large Tishinsky shopping center. He also sponsored three basketball clubs, and was named chief executive of the Russian women's basketball team in 2008.
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Post a commentOnetime spy shot dead in Moscow
MOSCOW - A Russian businessman who had been convicted in Israel of being a KGB spy was shot dead in Moscow yesterday, police said.
Shabattai Kalmanovich, 61, was gunned down near his apartment in central Moscow after unidentified gunmen fired at least 20 bullets at his Mercedes-Benz from a passing car, police said. His driver was wounded.
Investigators are looking for at least two assassins, Anatoly Bagmet, head of the Moscow Investigative Committee, said in televised remarks.
Since 1994, Kalmanovich worked in Moscow as director general of the large Tishinsky shopping center.
Born in Soviet Lithuania in 1949, Kalmanovich emigrated to Israel in 1971. He reportedly agreed to spy for the KGB in return for a permit allowing him to leave Lithuania. In Israel, he eventually became a government adviser on the resettlement of Soviet Jews. He also was Israel's representative in Sierra Leone.
An Israeli court in 1988 convicted him of espionage and sentenced him to seven years in jail. He was released after serving five years and relocated to Sierra Leone, where he made a fortune in the diamonds trade.
