Journalist Sergei Aslanyan attacked in Moscow
A Russian-Armenian journalist is in hospital after being lured out of his home and stabbed 20 times late on Monday night in the latest attack on a member of the press, the Guardian reported.
Sergei Aslanyan, 46, works for Radio Mayak and spent 10 years as a presenter on Echo Moskvy, Russia's leading liberal radio station.
Police sources said Aslanyan received a call from an unknown number just before midnight, inviting him outside for a chat. After leaving his home in southern Moscow, he was stabbed repeatedly in the chest, neck and arms by a man, or several men, wielding a knife.
"The victim has been hospitalised, his life is not in danger," a police source told the Itar-Tass news agency.
Police have opened an investigation into the attack.
The Izvestiya newspaper suggested the attack could have been linked to a recent radio appearance during which Aslanyan insulted the prophet Muhammad.
The programme prompted an angry response among some Muslims, with an imam in the eastern city of Kazan asking prosecutors to investigate the journalist.
Others linked the attack to Aslanyan's reporting on Russia's auto industry and corrupt traffic police.