Posted on July 16, 2012 - by Venik
Anna Politkovskaya killing: former Moscow policeman charged
Russian investigators accuse Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov of helping to organise 2006 murder of journalist critical of Vladimir Putin
Russian investigators have charged a former policeman with helping to organise the killing of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya almost six years ago.
The case, which has come to symbolise the suppression of free speech and the corruption of the judiciary during Vladimir Putin’s 2000-2008 presidency, is now seen as a test for reform since his returned to the Kremlin in May.
At the time of her death in 2006, Politkovskaya had been investigating human rights abuses in Chechnya as well as high-level corruption across Russia. Some of her dispatches had sharply criticised Putin, a former KGB spy.
Investigators accused Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, an ex-policeman, of following Politkovskaya, 58, in the days before she was murdered.
He was also accused of giving the gunman the weapon used to kill her in the hallway of her apartment building in Moscow on 7 October 2006. She was shot several times in the head, chest and shoulder.
“The investigators have now clearly identified the role of the former Moscow policeman Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov in the crime and have presented him with charges,” Russia’s investigative committee said on Monday.
Human rights groups and Politkovskaya’s colleagues at the newspaper Novaya Gazeta have criticised the slow pace of the investigation and expressed doubt that it would ever reveal who ordered the killing.
Pointing to her articles, investigators made a rare reference to a possible motive and the person behind the murder, saying: “An unidentified person upset with publications exposing human rights violations, the stealing of state property and the overstepping of authority by officials.”
According to the investigators, that person hired a Chechen native, Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, to create a six-man team that staked out her apartment and followed her back from the grocery store on the day of the murder. Pavlyuchenkov was a member of that team, investigators alleged.
“Each member of the group has now been presented with charges in regard to the murdering of Politkovskaya, depending on their role in the crime,” the committee said, adding that Pavlyuchenkov’s case would be considered separately because of his agreement to collaborate with police.
The case is one of at least a dozen Russian journalists whose politically charged murders have gone unsolved.
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