The headless bodies of a court bailiff and a police officer have been found in the southern Russian republic of Kabardino Balkaria, a security official said on Tuesday.
The bodies were found on Monday night in the town of Chegen, the source said.
"The beheaded bodies of the men, a district bailiff and a police officer, were found in the trunk of a Mercedes," the source said, adding they were 26 and 27 years old respectively.
The men had been shot with automatic weapons before being beheaded, the source said. He said police are looking into several theories behind the crime, including Islamist violence.
The mainly Muslim republic has been plagued by instability afflicting other regions of Russia's North Caucasus.
Militant violence, organized crime, high unemployment and corruption have been rife in the impoverished region dependent on subsidies from Moscow.
Kabardino Balkaria borders North Ossetia, the site of the bloody 2004 school siege in Beslan, and is 50 kilometers west of Chechnya.
NALCHIK, November 24 (RIA Novosti)
