RUSSIA’S SUPREME court ordered a new investigation yesterday into the murder of campaigning journalist Anna Politkov-skaya, in a move which her lawyer said gave the country’s heavily criticised authorities a fresh opportunity to catch her killer.
The court sent the case back to Russia’s prosecutor general for further investigation, upholding a complaint from Politkovskaya’s family.
The move follows a bungled trial earlier this year, in which four people accused of involvement in her death were acquitted by a jury.
Yesterday, Politkovskaya’s lawyer, Karinna Moskalenko, cautiously welcomed the decision.
It comes almost three years after Politkovskaya (48), a journalist, writer and critic of Vladimir Putin and his proxies in Chechnya, was shot dead in the hallway of her Moscow apartment block.
“Whether the general prosecutor will use this opportunity, we don’t know. We can only hope,” Ms Moskalenko told the Echo of Moscow radio station.
“So far, this hasn’t happened. Three years have passed since this tragic event and the truth still hasn’t been uncovered.”
Politkovskaya’s paper, Novaya Gazeta, also welcomed the judgment. “It is a very important step on the way towards investigating this crime,” it said.
“We are pleased there are still some people in Russia who recognise the law.”
Russia’s authorities claim they have been unable to identify who ordered her killing.
They have also failed to catch her assassin, who slipped into Politkovskaya’s building and then shot her four times as she emerged from the lift.
Investigators have named the hitman as Chechen Rustam Makhmudov. They say he has fled abroad.
In June, Russia’s high court ordered a retrial in the case of Makhmudov’s two brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim, who were charged with involvement in Politkovskaya’s death along with a former Moscow policeman, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, and Lieut Col Pavel Ryaguzov, an officer in Russia’s FSB spy agency.
A jury acquitted all four in February. Defence lawyers described their three-month trial as an embarrassing fiasco, and said the investigation was shoddy and inadequate. The defendants are currently being retried at the same military court in Moscow, this time without a jury.
Politkovskaya’s children, Ilya and Vera, have repeatedly pressed for a full and proper investigation. They acknowledge that there was not enough evidence to convict the four defendants, accused of providing logistical support to her killer, but have said publicly they believe the four were “involved” in her death. – (Guardian service)