By Egan Orion
1 September 2008, 10:25 AM

THE OWNER and editor of a web site that was critical of police abuse of the citizens of a troubled southern Russian province was arrested and apparently shot to death by police on Sunday.

Ingushetiya police arrested Magomed Yevloyev, proprietor of the website Ingushetiya.ru, on a plane from Moscow after it landed, according to deputy editor Ruslan Kautiyev. Kautiyev said Yevloyev was taken away in a car by police and dumped beside the road a short time later with a gunshot wound to the head. He subsequently died at a hospital.

A court had ordered Yevloyev's web site shut down in June due to government allegations that it was publishing "extremist" views. Yevloyev complied, but continued online publication on a new web site with a different name. Also in June, Human Rights Watch said Russian security forces had committed many human rights abuses in Ingushetia.

The group claimed that it had documented dozens of arbitrary detentions, instances of torture, disappearances of civilians and extrajudicial executions. It accused Ingushetia's authorities of persecuting peaceful Muslims and civil rights critics, marginalising opposition groups and suppressing independent journalists.