Investigation of the murder of Mark Weil, Art Director of the Ilkhom Theater (Tashkent, Uzbekistan), is under way with precious little to show for the effort.

Weil was fatally stabbed at the entrance to his own tenement house on September 6 night and died at hospital four hours later. The police arrived at the site of the crime with nearly a half hour delay and therefore missed the murderers.

No updates on the investigation or its findings are available. What information Ferghana.Ru has compiled, however, indicates that detectives representing the prosecutor's office, Interior Ministry, and National Security Service have concentrated on the domestic crime hypothesis.

Identikit of one of the suspects was made right away, identikits of two others a week later. They are posted in the area of the site and on the Ilkhom Theater premises.

The first identikit made the night Mark Weil was murdered

Identikit of one of the two other suspects made a week later

Identikit of one of the two other suspects made a week later

Detectives running the investigation rigorously interrogate Ilkhom actors and employees. Everyone from acting Art Director Boris Gofurov to check-takers and dressers has already been interrogated at the police precinct located right near Weil's tenement house. Every session lasts 3-4 hours. Actors admit that they are put under considerable psychological pressure.

The Ilkhom Theater was already compelled to change its schedule when the season began because the police detained actor Faruh Haljigitov after a six-hour long interrogation. Haljigitov was released from the detention cell ten days later, without an apology or explanation. "Arrests like that certainly interfere with the work of the theater," actors say.

Weil's pupils opened a web site in memory of Mark Weil (Remembermark.com) in Seattle, US, where his widow and two daughters live. Tutors, students, and graduates from the Washington University in Seattle who studied under Weil there and at the Ilkhom Theater Dramatic Art School in Tashkent intend to establish the Ilkhom Theater Tour Support Foundation in the United States in spring 2008. What money will be raised is to be used to finance the Ilkhom Theater tour planned by Weil and Harold Norris of NY-based H-Art.