U.S. Officials in Moscow Issue Warning
Friday, 11 January 2002

MOSCOW -- The U.S. Embassy is urging gay Americans in Moscow to "exercise caution" following what appears to be the related murders of eight gay men over a 24 month period in Moscow.

The Moscow Times reports four Russians and four foreign tourist -- all gay or bisexual men -- have been killed in the past two years, apparently after picking up someone from a gay club in Moscow.

The American embassy has pushed prosecutors and police to reopen the cases and determine whether the murders are linked, but has had little success so far. U.S.General Consul James Warlick said Wednesday he has asked the Foreign Ministry to step in.

The embassy issued its warning Jan. 3, distributed via e-mail to Americans living in Moscow. The Moscow newspaper says, however, the sense of urgency comes through more clearly in a cable -- labeled sensitive but unclassified -- that was sent to the U.S. State Department on Dec. 1.

"Comparing notes with consular officials from other foreign missions, we believe we may have uncovered a disturbing pattern of murders of foreign gay men in Moscow," said the cable, which was first obtained by The Washington Blade, a gay publication in Washington, and then by The Moscow Times.

"Even if these murders are not connected, we believe that they suggest a sufficient level of danger for gay [American citizens] traveling to and residing in Russia that we should find a way to share this information with the AmCit community," it said.

Gay Russians in Moscow told the newspaper they are convinced the murders are connected and that the Kazarma club, which is housed inside the Chameleon club, is the link.

Briton Christopher Rees, 34, was killed in September 1999. He was found stabbed to death in his apartment. Steve Malcom, a 49-year-old American teacher, was the next to be found, on Aug. 27, 2000, also of multiple stab wounds.

In February 2001, Thomas Nagy-Bachman, an Australian, was found stabbed to death in his apartment. The newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reported in November that police had arrested a soldier who prostituted himself for money in that slaying.

The fourth foreign victim, 40-year-old Heinrich-Helmut Kurth, who worked as a chef at the Sheraton Palace Hotel, was found on June 23, 2001, brutally beaten. Both he and Rees were known to frequent the Chameleon club."

"As we began to dig and spoke informally to contacts in the gay community, we realized that it wasn't an isolated incident and that there have been four Russian gay men killed during the same period," an embassy official told the Moscow Times on Wednesday.

American officials have apparently lost confidence in local police, their frustration with the Prosecutor General's Office apparent. "The prosecutor told us that the Malcom case had been dropped in the absence of further leads, but thanked us for passing along the information. The German Embassy has been told that its case has been dropped as well," the cable said.

Chameleon changed management and now draws a straight crowd, but Kazarma, housed inside, is still one of the city's busiest pick-up venues."It's not your regular kind of gay club," said Nikita Ivanov, editor of Russian gay and lesbian web site Gay.ru, which has posted a warning about the club. "It is an inherently dangerous place."