Moscow: A Liberal member of the Russian Parliament Sergei Yushenkov was shot dead on April 17 by an unidentified assailant.

According to Interfax, Yushenkov succumbed after receiving several bullet wounds in the chest in the entrance of his apartment block in North West Moscow.

Yushenkov was a prominent leader of the anti-Putin Liberal Russia party floated by Yeltsin-era disgraced oligarch and multimillionaire Boris Berezovsky, currently living in London in self-imposed exile.

Yushenkov was highly critical of Russia's war in Chechnya.

He is the second member in his party to be gunned down in seven months. In August 2002, party member Vladimir Golovlyov was shot dead, and in his comments, Yushenkov had said it was a politically motivated murder.

In 1994-98, Yushenkov was chairman of the Duma standing committee on defence and was blamed by the hardliners for ignoring the needs of the armed forces.

He was highly critical of President Putin's policies of strengthening the law enforcement bodies and Defence, seen by the Liberal opponents as an attempt to re- create a police state in Russia.

Just hours before his murder, Yushenkov had announced Liberal Russia Party's plans to contest upcoming Duma polls in December.

PTI