An executive of a German publishing house was stabbed to death with a rare dagger from a collection owned by her.

Marina Pisareva, 47, was found dead at the weekend at her cottage outside Moscow, the regional prosecutor’s office said yesterday. “The presumed murder weapon has been taken from the scene – a collector’s dagger that belonged to the victim,” the office said.

Nothing appeared to have been stolen from her home and police said that they were examining several possible motives, including links to work.

Ms Pisareva, who lived in the prestigious Odintsova district, was the deputy head of Bertelsmann Media Moscow, according to Klaus Marcus, a spokesman for the German company’s book and record club division. Her team produces illustrated books and coffee-table editions. “As far as we know there is no link between the business and the murder,” a company spokesman said.

Bertelsmann, whose headquarters are in Guetersloh, Germany, owns several media companies involved in television, book and magazine publishing, and music sales.

They include the US publishing giant Random House and the broadcaster RTL, which holds a 30 per cent stake in Ren-TV, a Russian entertainment channel controlled by businessmen close to President Putin.

RTL was the first Western broadcaster to take a major stake in Russian television. Ren TV reaches an audience of 97 million people across the country through agreements with local broadcasters.

Russia has witnessed a spate of assassinations after years of relative calm under Mr Putin’s rule. Andrei Kozlov, deputy chairman of Russia’s Central Bank, was shot last September outside Moscow’s Spartak sports stadium.

Anna Politkovskaya, Russia’s leading investigative journalist, died in the lift of her apartment building on Mr Putin’s 54th birthday a month later. Nobody has been arrested for her murder.

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