Colleagues say Russian reporter's death suspicious

MOSCOW, Mar 5 (Reuters) Colleagues of a Russian journalist who died after falling from a fifth-floor window said today they did not believe the prosecutors' theory that he had committed suicide.

Ivan Safronov, a 51-year-old former officer in the armed forces who wrote on military affairs for the Kommersant newspaper, was found dead outside his Moscow apartment building on Friday. There was no evidence of an attack.

Many journalists in Russia treat the deaths of colleagues with suspicion because of a history of violent attacks on media workers. These include the shooting last year of Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter.

''I have known him for 10 years and this (suicide) is absolutely not in his character,'' Andrei Vassilyev, Safronov's editor-in-chief at Kommersant, told Reuters.

''This is a person who is not prone to contemplation, he is an absolutely matter-of-fact person, a military person ...

Everything was fine with him,'' said Vassilyev. ''This is a very strange situation.'' He said he knew of no reason why anyone would want to harm the journalist.

Prosecutors could not be reached for comment on Safronov's death on Monday. Earlier, local media quoted prosecutors as saying suicide was the most likely explanation.

Kommersant deputy editor Ilya Bulavinov said the newspaper would conduct its own investigation. ''Of course Ivanych did not go of his own accord,'' Bulavinov wrote in the daily on Monday, using Safronov's nickname.

REUTERS PDM HT1814