Murdered Reporter Was Writing Torture Story
Russia Investigates Whether She Was Killed Over Her Reporting
By HENRY MEYER, AP
MOSCOW (Oct. 8) - Russia pledged Sunday to hunt down the killers of
crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya but her colleagues said they will mount their
own investigation, certain she was killed because of her critical reporting
of President Vladimir Putin's war in Chechnya.
As the European Union and the U.S. demanded a thorough probe, there was
skepticism that the authorities would ever uncover the culprits of the latest in
a series of slayings of journalists in Russia under Putin, who has been
increasingly accused of rolling back post-Soviet freedoms since he came to power
in 2000.
Politkovskaya, famed for her unsparing coverage of abuses against civilians
in the war-ravaged Russian region of Chechnya, was found dead Saturday in the
elevator of her Moscow apartment building from two gunshot wounds - one to
the head. She was 48.
Suspicion fell on Moscow-backed Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov - whose
forces are accused of abductions and torture - but he described her death as a
"great tragedy," ITAR-Tass reported.
Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika personally took charge of the investigation,
his office said Sunday, citing the "particular importance (of the case) and
its wide resonance within society."
The investigation will focus on possible links between the killing and
Politkovskaya's work, Marina Gridneva, a spokeswoman for the Prosecutor-General's
office, said Sunday.
"I assure you that investigators and our colleagues from the Interior
Ministry will do everything to ensure that the killers of Anna Politkovskaya, the
perpetrators as well as those who ordered it, are found soon," she said in
comments broadcast on state television.
Politkovskaya's death was the most high-profile slaying of a journalist in
Russia since the July 2004 assassination of Paul Klebnikov, the U.S.-born
editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine. That crime was believed linked
to Klebnikov's investigation of the murky business world in Russia but
remains unresolved; two ethnic Chechens accused of carrying it out were acquitted
earlier this year.
Politkovskaya's newspaper, the biweekly Novaya Gazeta, whose reporters are
to investigate her death, called it a revenge killing for her coverage of
Chechnya. Her editors said she was due Monday to publish an investigative article
about torture and kidnappings in Chechnya based on witness accounts and
photos of tortured bodies.
"We never got the article, but she had evidence about these (abducted)
people and there were photographs," Deputy Editor Vitaly Yerushensky, told Ekho
Moskvy radio.
Oleg Orlov, of Russia's main human rights group, Memorial, said that he was
certain Politkovskaya, whose reporting put her on a collision course with the
authorities but won her numerous international awards, was killed on the
orders of those responsible for abuses in Chechnya.
"For me it's clear that directly or indirectly this was done by people who
have carried out state terror, the terror that we see in the North Caucasus,"
Orlov told The Associated Press.
Politkovskaya, one of the few Russian journalists writing about widespread
human rights abuses in Chechnya, had been a persistent critics of Kadyrov, the
region's Moscow-backed prime minister.
Politkovskaya also angered other powerful people - including the Russian
military - with her investigative reporting and human rights advocacy.
Novaya Gazeta said on its Web site it believed her murder was either revenge
by Kadyrov or an attempt to discredit him.
In a recent radio interview, Politkovskaya said she was a witness in a
criminal case against Kadyrov concerning his alleged involvement in the kidnapping
of two civilians - an ethnic Russian and a Chechen - who were tortured and
killed.
On Sunday, dozens of well-wishers came to lay flowers outside the entrance
to Politkovskaya's apartment block in downtown Moscow and placed flowers and
candles outside the newspaper's offices.
Hundreds meanwhile rallied in Moscow's Pushkin Square on Sunday to protest
her murder as well as the Russian crackdown on Georgians since a spy row
erupted last week.
Underneath a photograph of Politkovskaya, one poster read: "The Kremlin has
killed freedom of speech."
Her killing underlined the increasingly dangerous environment for
journalists working in Russia. It brings to at least 13 the number of journalists
killed in contract-style killings in the past six years, according to the New
York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev condemned Politkovskaya's killing as
"a blow to the entire, democratic, independent press," Interfax said.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the
United States was "shocked and profoundly saddened" by her death, praising her
"shining a light on human rights abuses and other atrocities of the war in
Chechnya" and the plight of Chechen refugees.
The European Union and the Council of Europe, a leading human rights
watchdog whose executive body currently is led by Russia, called for a convincing
investigation.
Politkovskaya had been under repeated threat. In 2004, she fell seriously
ill with symptoms of food poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow
to southern Russia during the school hostage crisis in Beslan. Her colleagues
suspected it was an attempt on her life.
Politkovskaya began reporting on Chechnya in 1999 during Russia's second
military campaign there, concentrating less on military engagements than on the
human side of the war.
Russia has largely brought the rebellious southern territory under control,
but it remains locked in conflict with a hardcore of separatist rebels, and
allegations of kidnappings, torture and murder of civilians blamed on Russian
forces and their Chechen allies persist.
Politkovskaya is survived by two adult children.
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