French police believe that the killing of a blogger from the disputed Russian region of Chechnya in a French hotel room last week was "politically motivated," a French police official briefed on the case said.
The official said the police were now hunting for the blogger's traveling companion, who disappeared shortly after the killing.
French investigators wish to speak with the Chechen man who accompanied the blogger, Imran Aliev, 44, from his home in Belgium to northern France via train on January 29, the official said.
Aliev, who vocally opposed the Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin, was found dead the next morning by hotel staff.
His throat had been slit.
Aliev was from Chechnya, the southwestern Russia region that has seen two brutal wars for independence from Russia in recent decades. The region is controlled by Kadyrov, with approval from Moscow.
Aliev had left Belgium, "where he was under police protection because of threats out of Russia and Chechnya over his opposition blogging," said the senior French police official, who could not be identified in the media because they were discussing an open investigation.
