Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilyas Omarov said the reporter, whom he identified as Gregoire De Bourgues, was working for the Washington-based SML Strategic Media consultancy group preparing a report on Kazakhstan for the U.S. magazine "Foreign Affairs."
A statement issued by Kazakhstan's Adil Soz, a nongovernmental media watchdog, quoted unidentified police officials as saying De Bourgues was murdered and that the incident has no political undertones.
Kazakh authorities say they have opened a criminal investigation.
(AP, Interfax-Kazakhstan)
