CHISINAU, March 13 (Reuters) - A prominent member of a political party led by the head of ex-Soviet Moldova's separatist Transdniestria region has been shot dead, news reports from the area said on Tuesday. Transdniestria's official Olvia news agency said Viktor Neumoyin was killed overnight by automatic gunfire at the entrance of the apartment block where he lived. Neumoyin led the Patriotic Party in Tiraspol, main town of the Russian-speaking region which declared independence from Moldova in Soviet times and has rejected all attempts at post-communication reconciliation. Its independence has no international recognition. The Patriotic Party, one of three main political groupings in Transdniestria, is led by Oleg Smirnov, a banker and son of the self-styled president Igor Smirnov. A Patriotic Party statement denounced the shooting as a "political murder carried out at the behest of our political opponents". Political commentators in Moldova, Europe's poorest country, suggested the killing could be linked to murky dealings in Transdniestria's complex business world. Transdniestria broke away from Moldova in 1990 on fears that the then-Soviet republic's Romanian-speaking majority would one day join neighbouring Romania. That never happened, but war between Moldova and separatists broke out in 1992, with the two sides separated by Russian troops who remain to this day despite promises to leave.
