MOSCOW, Jan 17 (Reuters) - A former Russian official who headed the land registry for Moscow's most expensive district has been killed by a car bomb, Kommersant reported on Wednesday.

Valery Yakovlev, former head of the Odintsovsky local land registry, died when a homemade radio-activated bomb ripped through his car on Tuesday, the newspaper reported.

It said the murder was probably linked to land deals, which cannot go ahead without approval from the registry, making the signature of the head of the registry, or the lack of it, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to developers.

Moscow's Odintsovsky region is home to Russia's super rich and political elite who build luxury country homes in sometimes exotic styles for millions of dollars.

Prices for land soared to records last year as Russia's economy was flooded with billions of oil dollars. Contract killings are frequent and rarely solved in Russia.

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