10 Arrested in Killing of Russian Journalist
MOSCOW _ A crime ring aided by rogue police murdered famed journalist Anna Politkovskaya last year on behalf of outsiders bent on discrediting the Kremlin, Russian authorities said Monday, though the reporter’s editors dismissed the government’s assertion about motive as “political PR.”
Ten men have been arrested for Politkovskaya’s murder, Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika said, including a Chechen crime boss and Russian police and security officers who helped track the journalist’s movements before her murder in the lobby of her Moscow apartment building last fall.
Politkovskaya, 48, was regarded as Russia’s most fearless investigative journalist and one of the Kremlin’s fiercest critics. Her murder sparked concern from Russians and Westerners about security for journalists in Russia and the growing intolerance for dissent and criticism under Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Not long after the reporter’s slaying, Putin suggested that people outside Russia may have engineered her murder to tar the Kremlin’s image. Though Putin didn’t name names, he appeared to be pointing to Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian oligarch and staunch Kremlin critic now living in London.
Chaika’s discussion of motive in the Politkovskaya murder hewed closely to Putin’s remarks.
“Politkovskaya’s murder may only have been in the interest of persons outside the Russian Federation,” Chaika said, “that have as a goal to … engineer a crisis in Russia, return to the former system where money and the oligarchs made all the decisions, and discredit the leaders of the Russian state.”
The chief editor of the newspaper where Politkovskaya worked, Novaya Gazeta, said the paper conducted its own investigation and found no evidence to support Chaika’s claim about motive.
“The prosecutor general’s office has scant proof to make those accusations,” said Sergei Sokolov, deputy chief editor of Novaya Gazeta. “What was said today (by Chaika) I can only call political PR. It’s hard to tell why they did that.”
Chaika did not name any of the men arrested. He said the group was led by a Chechen who headed up a Moscow crime ring responsible for a series of contract killings in Russia, Ukraine and Latvia. A police major, three former police officers and an officer with the KGB’s successor agency, the Federal Security Service, took part by supplying Politkovskaya’s killers with information about her and helping them track her whereabouts.
Members of the gang responsible for Politkovskaya’s murder include suspects in the 2004 murder of Paul Klebnikov, an American citizen and editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, Chaika said. He also suggested the same gang may be linked to the murder last year of Andrei Kozlov, a reform-minded deputy chief of Russia’s Central Bank.
Chaika would not discuss any further details of Politkovskaya’s murder. However, Novaya Gazeta conducted its own investigation and discussed some of its findings on the paper’s Web site Monday.
According to the newspaper, Politkovskaya was “being shadowed day and night” by her killers, who staked out the entrance of her apartment building and followed her when she drove through the city. The man who gunned down Politkovskaya had scouted out the apartment building lobby at least twice before the murder.
On Oct. 7, Politkovskaya entered the apartment building carrying bags of groceries. The gunman, dressed in black, approached and fired twice, shooting her once in the head, authorities said. He dropped the gun and fled. Chaika said Monday that the gunman was among those arrested.
Russia remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Politkovskaya was the 13th journalist killed in a contract killing since Putin took power seven years ago. None of those murders has been solved.
Politkovskaya wrote extensively about atrocities committed by Russian soldiers and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in the southern province of Chechnya. Along the way, she received threats from all sides of the conflict. She fled to Vienna in 2001 after receiving threats from a Russian officer angered after she wrote about his involvement in war crimes.
Sokolov said editors at the paper believe Politkovskaya’s murder is likely linked to her articles about the conflict in Chechnya. “We do hope they will prosecute the right people,” he said, “but we cannot be completely confident of that.”
Among those probing Politkovskaya’s murder was Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian security agent killed in November after drinking tea laced with polonium, a radioactive substance that can kill in minute amounts. Litvinenko, a Berezovsky ally and harsh Putin critic, had accused Putin of involvement in Politkovskaya’s murder and on his deathbed issued a statement blaming the Russian leader for his poisoning.
British authorities charged another former Russian intelligence agent, Andrei Lugovoi, with Litvinenko’s murder, though Russia has refused to extradite Lugovoi to Britain on the grounds that its constitution bars the extradition of its citizens.
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