Russia arrests 10 in journalist's murder, blames foreign provocation

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Russia arrests 10 in journalist's murder, blames foreign provocation

by Sebastian Smith

Mon Aug 27



MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia on Monday announced 10 arrests in the killing of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, blaming her murder and other high-profile crimes on a foreign-based campaign to destabilise President Vladimir Putin.

Prosecutor General Yury Chaika told Putin in a televised meeting that police had made "serious progress."

"To date we have arrested 10 people. In the very near future they will be charged with committing this serious crime," he said in the comments shown on NTV television.

He appeared to point the finger at exiled Putin critics, saying those behind the October 2006 killing -- which highlighted dangers faced by journalists in Russia and badly embarrassed the Kremlin -- were abroad.

"The individuals interested in eliminating Politkovskaya can only be ones living beyond Russia's borders," Chaika later told reporters.

"It's useful above all to people and structures that are aimed at destabilizing the country and undoing the constitutional order in Russia."

Chaika said the same group of killers may have been behind the 2004 murder of another journalist, US citizen Paul Klebnikov, and the murder in Moscow last year of the central bank's deputy chief.

"As our probe shows, the string of murders that took place were the same type of provocation," Chaika said. "It's not a first attempt. There is a list of previous murders that were similar provocations."

According to Chaika, the actual killers included serving and retired members of Russia's interior ministry and elite federal security service. They were led by someone from war-torn Chechnya, he said.

However, the motivation was "aimed at provoking external pressure on our country's leadership," Chaika asserted.

Chaika's comments appeared to refer especially to outspoken Kremlin critic and exiled businessman Boris Berezovsky, who has political asylum in Britain, and has repeatedly called for Putin to be forced from office.

An extradition request would be issued for the alleged mastermind "when we have fuller proof," Chaika said.

Berezovsky shot back, saying the Kremlin organised Politkovskaya's murder. "They are mad, they are seriously sick, they are really mad, Chaika, the Kremlin, the prosecutor's office," he told AFP in London.

The Politkovskaya murder was one of a string of major blows in late 2006 to the Kremlin's image, coming just before the lethal radiation poisoning in London of fugitive Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko, which the Kremlin has also painted as an attack on Russia.

The announcement of 10 arrests was the first major breakthrough since she was gunned down in the stairwell to her Moscow apartment building as she returned from shopping.

Politkovskaya's former employers welcomed the apparent success. Sergei Sokolov, editor in chief at Novaya Gazeta, praised what he said was a "high-level professional" investigation.

As a journalist for the independent twice-weekly Novaya Gazeta, she had been almost alone in the Russian media in probing war crimes in Chechnya. She also wrote a series of books critical of Putin's rule.


The most powerful media organisations are all under state control in Russia and criticism of the Kremlin and the 13-year-long counter-insurgency in Chechnya is rare.

Oleg Panfilov, director of the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, said the announced progress in the Politkovskaya case did not signal any improvement in reporters' safety.

"I don't have any hope," he said. "Almost not a single murder of a journalist in Russia has been solved."

"I think the Kremlin is simply fed up with the whole world always asking about what's happening in the Politkovskaya case," he said. "It's yet another bluff."

According to the International Federation of Journalists, more than 80 journalists have been murdered for professional reasons since 1993. A calculation by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, another advocacy group, lists 44 journalists killed for their work in Russia since 1991.

[source]