Wall of honor
Anna Politkovskaya, a 48-year-old journalist, renowned for her critical coverage of the Chechen conflict, was found killed in her apartment building in Moscow, according to international news reports. The Interfax news agency, citing police, said Politkovskaya had been shot and that a pistol and four bullet casings had been found. Even though five men were arrested for this murder, it is still unclear who ordered or paid for the contract killing.
Politkovskaya, special correspondent for the independent Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was well known for her investigative reports on human rights abuses by the Russian military in Chechnya. In seven years covering the second Chechen war (1999–2005), Anna's reporting repeatedly drew the anger of Russian authorities. She was threatened, jailed, forced into exile, and poisoned during her career.
Committee to Protect Journalists had named Politkovskaya one of the world's top press freedom figures of the past 25 years in the fall 2006 edition of its magazine, Dangerous Assignments. In an interview for that profile, Anna noted the government's interference and harassment of journalists trying to cover the Chechen conflict, and pointed to the deadly 2004 hostage crisis in the North Ossetian town of Beslan.
Politkovskaya had been threatened and attacked numerous times in retaliation for her work. In February 2001 security agents arrested her in the Vedeno district in Chechnya, accusing her of entering Chechnya without accreditation. She was kept in a pit for three days without food or water, while a military officer threatened to shoot her. Seven months later, she received death threats from a military officer accused of crimes against civilians. She was forced to flee to Vienna after the officer sent an e-mail to Novaya Gazeta promising that he would seek revenge.
When Politkovskaya secretly visited Chechnya in 2002 to investigate new allegations of human rights abuses, security officers arrested her, kept her overnight at a military base, and threatened her. In October of that year, Politkovskaya served as a mediator between armed Chechen fighters and Russian forces during a hostage standoff in a central Moscow theater. Two days into the crisis, with the Kremlin restricting media coverage, Russian forces gassed the theater and 129 hostages died. Politkovskaya delivered some of the most interesting stories and facts of the tragedy.
She was poisoned while flying from Moscow via Rostov-on-Don to help resolve the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis. After drinking tea on a flight to the region, she became seriously ill and was hospitalized--but the toxin was never identified because the medical staff was instructed to destroy her blood tests.
On October 7, 2006, she was murdered in the elevator of her block of flats, an assassination that attracted international attention.
In 2009, a Moscow jury acquitted three suspected conspirators, the brothers Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov and former Moscow police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov. Another Makhmudov brother, Rustam, whom authorities identified as the gunman, was at large at the time.
The case moved forward again in 2012, when prosecutors accused Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, a retired police lieutenant colonel, on charges that he helped orchestrate the murder. Authorities accused Pavlyuchenkov, head of surveillance for Moscow's main police force in 2006, of ordering his subjects to follow Politkovskaya and determine her schedule and usual travel routes. In December 2012, Pavlyuchenkov was sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges that he was an accomplice in the plot. Following the verdict, investigators said they considered deported magnate Boris Berezovsky and Chechen messenger Akhmed Zakayev to be the masterminds--a statement dismissed by Politkovskaya's representatives as unfounded and politically motivated. On May 20, 2014, a Moscow City Court jury found the five defendants guilty of planning, participating, and carrying out Politkovskaya's murder.
Karinna Moskalenko, one of the Politkovskaya family lawyers, said she was skeptical about the 2014 verdicts, because the life terms given to two secondary offenders in the murder were an attempt to turn international attention away from the case, and avoid the fact that Anna Politkovskaya's killing remains unsolved.
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Politkovskaya, special correspondent for the independent Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was well known for her investigative reports on human rights abuses by the Russian military in Chechnya. In seven years covering the second Chechen war (1999–2005), Anna's reporting repeatedly drew the anger of Russian authorities. She was threatened, jailed, forced into exile, and poisoned during her career.
Committee to Protect Journalists had named Politkovskaya one of the world's top press freedom figures of the past 25 years in the fall 2006 edition of its magazine, Dangerous Assignments. In an interview for that profile, Anna noted the government's interference and harassment of journalists trying to cover the Chechen conflict, and pointed to the deadly 2004 hostage crisis in the North Ossetian town of Beslan.
Politkovskaya had been threatened and attacked numerous times in retaliation for her work. In February 2001 security agents arrested her in the Vedeno district in Chechnya, accusing her of entering Chechnya without accreditation. She was kept in a pit for three days without food or water, while a military officer threatened to shoot her. Seven months later, she received death threats from a military officer accused of crimes against civilians. She was forced to flee to Vienna after the officer sent an e-mail to Novaya Gazeta promising that he would seek revenge.
When Politkovskaya secretly visited Chechnya in 2002 to investigate new allegations of human rights abuses, security officers arrested her, kept her overnight at a military base, and threatened her. In October of that year, Politkovskaya served as a mediator between armed Chechen fighters and Russian forces during a hostage standoff in a central Moscow theater. Two days into the crisis, with the Kremlin restricting media coverage, Russian forces gassed the theater and 129 hostages died. Politkovskaya delivered some of the most interesting stories and facts of the tragedy.
She was poisoned while flying from Moscow via Rostov-on-Don to help resolve the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis. After drinking tea on a flight to the region, she became seriously ill and was hospitalized--but the toxin was never identified because the medical staff was instructed to destroy her blood tests.
On October 7, 2006, she was murdered in the elevator of her block of flats, an assassination that attracted international attention.
In 2009, a Moscow jury acquitted three suspected conspirators, the brothers Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov and former Moscow police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov. Another Makhmudov brother, Rustam, whom authorities identified as the gunman, was at large at the time.
The case moved forward again in 2012, when prosecutors accused Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, a retired police lieutenant colonel, on charges that he helped orchestrate the murder. Authorities accused Pavlyuchenkov, head of surveillance for Moscow's main police force in 2006, of ordering his subjects to follow Politkovskaya and determine her schedule and usual travel routes. In December 2012, Pavlyuchenkov was sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges that he was an accomplice in the plot. Following the verdict, investigators said they considered deported magnate Boris Berezovsky and Chechen messenger Akhmed Zakayev to be the masterminds--a statement dismissed by Politkovskaya's representatives as unfounded and politically motivated. On May 20, 2014, a Moscow City Court jury found the five defendants guilty of planning, participating, and carrying out Politkovskaya's murder.
Karinna Moskalenko, one of the Politkovskaya family lawyers, said she was skeptical about the 2014 verdicts, because the life terms given to two secondary offenders in the murder were an attempt to turn international attention away from the case, and avoid the fact that Anna Politkovskaya's killing remains unsolved.
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