* Authorities fear death may spark ultranationalist rallies
* Ex-colonel admitted to strangling girl, was handed parole
(Adds police quotes, details on killing, background)
By Maria Tsvetkova
MOSCOW, June 10 (Reuters) - A former Russian colonel who served a jail term for murdering a Chechen girl in 2000 was shot dead in Moscow on Friday, and investigators said the killing may have been aimed at provoking nationalist violence.
Yuri Budanov was shot four times in the head from a pistol in a central Moscow neighbourhood and died at the scene, the federal Investigative Committee said in a statement. It said the unidentified gunman fled in a car.
Budanov was the most prominent military officer to be prosecuted for crimes against civilians that human rights activists say were widespread during the Kremlin's two post-Soviet wars against separatist rebels in Chechnya.
Budanov was initially acquitted after he admitted to strangling 18-year-old Elza Kungayeva during a tour of duty in Chechnya but pleaded temporary insanity, saying he was caught in a fit of rage after becoming convinced she was a rebel sniper.
He was convicted in a new trial in 2003 and sentenced to 10 years in prison but won early release in 2009, prompting bitter protests in Chechnya.
"A dog's death for a dog," Kungayeva's father, Visa Kungayev, told Reuters by phone from Norway, where he now lives.
Budanov, who was stripped of his rank, became a symbol of rights abuses by federal forces in Chechnya, part of Russia's restive, mostly Muslim North Caucasus. He has also become a hero among many ethnic Russian ultranationalists.
A Moscow court last month sentenced an ultranationalist to life in prison for the 2009 murder of Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer who represented Kungayeva's family and opposed Budanov's early release. [nLDE74511W]
Investigators said they did not rule out that the killing was meant as a "provocation" aimed at fomenting violence and that there was no immediate evidence that any ethnic minority groups were behind it.
State television showed footage of Budanov's body lying askew on a curb at the edge of a playground just off a major Moscow avenue. Investigators said the getaway car was found abandoned in another area, a pistol and silencers inside.
Racist violence has flared in Russia since the 1991 Soviet collapse, with ultranationalists targeting minorities from the Caucasus and Central Asia, many of whom come to Moscow and other big cities to work.
About a fifth of Russia's 142 million people are Muslims.
On December 11 -- almost exactly six months ago -- some 7,000 ultranationalists rallied near the Kremlin, chanting racist slogans and attacking passersby of non-Slavic appearance in what President Dmitry Medvedev called "pogroms".
Reacting to Budanov's death in online forums, Russian ultranationalists called for rallies in his memory on Friday, raising fears of a repeat of the December violence.
Police in Moscow told Reuters they were monitoring the web sites of soccer fan clubs, which have strong links to ultranationalist groups.
Racial violence in December was sparked by the Dec. 6 killing of Yegor Sviridov, a Spartak Moscow soccer fan, during a fight between a group of ethnic Russians and natives of the mainly Muslim North Caucasus, Russia's most volatile region.
The violence and the frequency of racist incidents involving Russian fans have raised concerns about security during the 2018 World Cup, which Russia will host. (Writing by Gleb Bryanski and Alissa de Carbonnel; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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