I worked on Dagestan's Chernovik newspaper which he founded and then rescued. He had dangerous enemies

Throughout my seven-year association with Khadzhimurad Kamalov I have been waiting for this day. The day that they killed him.

I first set foot inside the editorial offices of Chernovik in early October 2004 after replying to a job vacancy ad for an economics editor. The offices were on the third floor of a crumbling building and comprised three modest rooms. The founder of the paper, Khadzhimurad, sat in one office with his accountant and secretary. The interview was somewhat unorthodox and took place in the presence of all three. Khadzhimurad asked the most wide-ranging questions and seemed to trust my erudition. A week later, having read through my story ideas, he offered me the job.

Every day when I arrived for work I met people on the way out with computers and other technological equipment. As I found out later from my new colleagues, Khadzhimurad sold anything and everything from his office base. Because of a conflict with the paper's financial backers – influential Dagestani people – the paper had money problems and had ceased to be published. Khadzhimurad sold his own car. Later, he borrowed money, using as collateral the small flat that he shared with his wife and son. For almost six months, the paper's staff came to work every day of the week without being paid. But they had confidence that the proprietor would be able to convince investors that the paper was a profitable business. And he managed to do just that. The paper started publishing again and became self-reliant.

Khadzhimurad had many enemies. He wasn't afraid to spell out his motto: "A newspaper does not need friends." He was not without an element of the cavalier. He could go off for some meeting with some frostbitten bandits and come back unharmed. He loved investigating corruption. Many of those exposed by his revelations – senior civil servants, police officers and staff at the prosecutor's office – had criminal pasts, and presents. Some were dangerous and not afraid of killing. Often there were confrontations with the heads of Dagestan's municipalities, many of whom are bandits. We got used to dubious people coming into the offices with various threats and leaving disarmed by the power of the arguments and the magnetic charm of this mysterious person.

When two years ago, in November 2009, the Ingushetian activist Maksharip Aushev was killed, I asked Khadzhimurad: "Are they soon going to start killing us?" By 'us' I meant me too, but principally him, because I had always associated Khadzhimurad with the brightest leaders of the opposition in the north Caucasus: Magomed Yevloyev, Aushev, Ruslan Nakhushev. The first two were killed by the security forces. The third disappeared without trace in 2005, after he was "invited" to a meeting at the local FSB offices.

His reply: "Dagestan still has a couple of years." Exactly two years and one month later, they killed him.

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