Notorious Russian godfather shot in Moscow

Doctors are attempting to save the life of the notorious Russian mafia boss, Yaponchik, after he was shot leaving a Moscow restaurant, BBC news reports.

Vyacheslav Ivankov, who served time in Soviet and US prisons, was shot three times in the stomach and seriously injured, investigators said.

A sniper rifle was found abandoned in a vehicle parked nearby.

Ivankov, nearly 70, made headlines four years ago when a Moscow court acquitted him of a multiple shooting.

He had been charged with murdering two Turkish nationals and injuring a third in a Moscow restaurant in 1992.

He was shot around 19.20 Moscow Time on Tuesday as he left a restaurant on Khoroshevskoye Road, said Anatoly Bagmet of the Moscow prosecutor's office.

The man dubbed Yaponchik ("the little Japanese") served nearly 10 years in a US jail for extortion and a fake marriage before being extradited to Russia to face trial for the Turkish shooting.

In Soviet times he spent 10 years in jail for gangsterism.