Bertelsmann manager murdered in Russia -prosecutor

MOSCOW, July 16 (Reuters) A Russian manager of German media group Bertelsmann [BERT.UL] has been found murdered at her country house outside Moscow, local prosecutors said today.

Marina Pisareva, deputy head of Bertelsmann's Russian office, was found dead yesterday, the Moscow region prosecutor's office said in a statement.

''The body of 47-year old Marina Pisareva was found on the morning of July 15 ... with stab wounds,'' the prosecutor said in a statement posted on www.mosoblproc.ru.

''Different scenarios are being investigated including the one that the murder was connected with the work of M. Pisareva,'' the statement said.

But a Bertelsmann spokesman said there was no link between the business and the murder.

''Bertelsmann Media Moscow publishes coffee table books and had no political content,'' Klaus Markus, a spokesman for Bertelsmann DirectGroup, said by telephone from the north German town of Guetersloh where the company is based.

Prosecutors said nothing from her country house -- known in Russia as a dacha -- appeared to have been stolen. A murder investigation had been opened.

Bertelsmann makes its money from television, book and magazine publishing, and music sales.

The firm, whose divisions span US publishing giant Random House and Europe's biggest commercial broadcaster, RTL Group, earned 2.4 billion euros of net profit in 2006 on sales of 19.3 billion.

Reuters KK GC1932