Berlin - A German journalist, Marcus Bensmann, 38, has been seriously injured in an attack in the Kazakhstan capital Astana, his relations said Tuesday as he was being flown to Germany for treatment. Bensmann is based in Central Asia and reports on conflicts in the former Soviet republics. He was one of the few journalists to witness the May 2005 massacre of hundreds of demonstrators in Andijan, Uzbekistan by police and soldiers.
Kazakh media said Tuesday that the attackers, who got away, beat him up, robbed him and and dumped him lifeless next to a highway with the temperature 35 degrees below zero Celsius on Saturday or Sunday.
German public broadcaster WDR in Cologne said he suffered fractures, head injuries and exposure.
The Moscow-based news agency said Kazakh police believed he was the victim of a common mugging and was not attacked because of his profession, but central Asian news agencies suggested the Uzbek secret service may have wanted to settle scores with him.
Bensmann who has lived in the region since 1995 is married to an Uzbek journalist. The couple had to leave Uzbekistan after the Andijan massacre. He was in Astana to research a TV report on Kazakhstan's economic boom.
Bensmann's clients include WDR and its ARD public television associates in Germany, the Neue Zuercher Zeitung newspaper in Switzerland and the leftist Berlin newspaper Tageszeitung.
