INQUIRER Sports

MOSCOW?A former world champion in Thai boxing was shot dead in Moscow in an apparent contract killing, officials said Friday, the latest high-profile murder to hit the Russian capital.

The corpse of Muslim Abdullayev, 27, was found late Thursday with multiple gunshot wounds to the head at a stadium in the north of Moscow, the investigative committee of prosecutors said in a statement.

"It seems that this murder was most likely a contract killing," a security source told the Interfax news agency.

"At the moment the connections of the victim are being examined and in particular if he had any conflicts at the current time," the official added.

Interfax said that Abdullayev in 2004 won both the European and World Championships in Thai boxing, otherwise known as Muay Thai?a sport that enjoys great popularity in Russia's northern Caucasus region.

Abdullayev was from the northern Caucasus region of Dagestan.

Russia became notorious after the break-up of the Soviet Union for contract killings carried out by a shady criminal underworld.

The number of such killings in Moscow lessened after the chaotic days of the 1990s but still occur with relative frequency.

Flamboyant Russian-Israeli businessman Shabtai von Kalmanovic, owner of a top Moscow women's basketball team, was shot dead in November in a drive-by shooting.