Elza Kungayeva - Murder of Yuri Budanov

Murder of Yuri Budanov

On June 10, 2011, Yuri Budanov, the man convicted of Elza Kungayeva's murder, was shot dead in central Moscow by an unidentified assailant as he left a notary office on Komsomolsky Prospekt, a busy avenue in the capital. Budanov had been released from prison 17 months earlier, in a move that angered human rights activists. Police said his killer and an accomplice fled in a Mitsubishi Lancer, which was later found less than a kilometer away from the crime scene. A pistol and silencer had been left inside the vehicle. A police source said the killing was “obviously a contract hit.”