From AP via CTV.ca:

A journalist for state-run Russian television was found dead in Moscow early Friday and prosecutors have opened a murder investigation, colleagues and officials said.

Firefighters found Channel One correspondent Ilyas Shurpayev's body in his apartment with stab wounds and a belt around his neck, Channel One spokeswoman Larisa Krymova said. She said a fire was apparently set in the apartment after the attack.

The Investigative Committee, a branch of the prosecutor's office said a murder investigation was underway. It said nothing about a possible motive.

State-run Vesti-24 television cited a concierge in Shurpayev's building as saying he had called down from his apartment early Friday to ask her to let two young men in.

Shurpayev, 32, was a native of the mostly Muslim Dagestan province and had worked in Russia's violence-ridden North Caucasus, which includes Dagestan and war-scarred Chechnya. Dagestan is plagued by tension among rival groups and political factions.

Hours before his death, Shurpayev wrote in his blog that the owners of a newspaper in Dagestan banned a column he wrote and instructed its staffers not to mention his name in publications.

"Now I am a dissident!'' was the title of the last entry in the web journal under his name.