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08.10.07
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More Questions Than Answers One Year Later
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By Daria Solovieva
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Anna Politkovskaya's Murder Remains Unsolved
A year ago, on Oct. 7, 2006, Russian journalist and human rights advocate Anna Politkovskaya was returning home from grocery shopping when she was shot four times in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building.
With 12 journalists murdered since 2000, Russia is one of the deadliest countries for reporters, and contract killing of prominent opposition critics is increasingly common. And yet from the start, Politkovskaya’s murder investigation was an anomaly, sustaining international attention for months and generating seemingly unprecedented involvement from the Russian government.
For one thing, Politkovskaya was killed in broad daylight and there was no attempt to camouflage the murder as a suicide or a case of domestic violence. According to a report from Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, it was a meticulously planned murder involving two surveillance teams. “While one group followed the journalist, the second group was monitoring the first,” he said.
The Western media kept the Politkovskaya case in the news, and human rights organizations honored Politkovskaya’s legacy with numerous awards, naming city squares after her and raising her to the status of a martyr.
International leaders have also been critical of Moscow’s reaction to and handling of the investigation, including Georgia’s president Mikheil Saakashvili. He singled out the assassination of Politkovskaya for an opportunity to criticize the Kremlin on press freedoms. “Tens of journalists have been liquidated,” Saakashvili said, calling Russian officials “totally corrupt.”
Politkovskaya’s wide recognition in the West gave her a false “aura of immunity,” says Nina Ognianova,” a Europe program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists. Ognianova says the reality someone like Politkovskaya could be targeted created “obvious repercussions for the rest of the journalistic community,” especially those covering corruption and the war in Chechnya.
At home, President Vladimir Putin downplayed Politkovskaya’s influence on Russia’s political life early on, but the Russian government has since recognized the damage created by an increasing number of unsolved murders of prominent figures.
With the announcement of 10 arrests during the week of Politkovskaya’s birthday in early August and an additional one in mid-September, the prosecutor general’s office is eager to demonstrate progress in the investigation.
On Aug. 27, 2007, Prosecutor General Chaika echoed the official government stance and blamed the foreign enemies of the Kremlin for the murder, making a poorly veiled accusation of Russian exile Boris Berezovksy. Ilya Politkovsky, the late journalist’s son who is collaborating with the Novaya Gazeta newspaper in the investigation, said in a phone interview that such a statement at this point in the investigation is “premature.”
Politkovskaya's former colleagues at Novaya Gazeta, who are conducting their own investigation, also seem to think the announcement was inconsistent and politically motivated. Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Chaika’s claim was a message directed at the suspects. “If your version of events coincides with that of the prosecutor general’s office, a deal with the justice system could be arranged,” he explained.
Out of the 10 people arrested, many have already been released. FSB officer Pavel Ryaguzov was arrested on Aug. 21 on suspicion of passing Politkovskaya’s address to the killers and was charged with abuse of office, abduction and illegal entry. Alexander Minchanovsky, the spokesman for the Moscow District Military Court, later told Interfax the reasons why Ryaguzov was arrested occurred in 2002 and have “no relation to the case dealing with Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya.”
Another suspect, police major Sergei Khadzhikurbanov also turned out to have an “iron-clad” alibi. At the time of Politkovskaya’s murder, Khadzhikurbanov was in prison on charges of planting evidence for an unrelated crime.
Many questions remain. On Sept. 4, the Russian government announced that Peter Garibyan, the lead investigator in the case, would be replaced. Politkovskaya’s colleagues and friends praised Garibyan’s work and have questioned this change.
The investigators suggested a Chechen gang is responsible for carrying out Politkovskaya’s assassination, and have hinted that law enforcement officers helped them by tracing the reporter and collecting information. Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB officer, believes that Anna Politkovskaya’s murder is linked to those of Chechen separatist Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who was killed in Qatar in 2004; former Novaya Gazeta Deputy Editor Yury Shchekochikhin, who was poisoned in 2003, and former FSB operative Alexander Litvinenko, who died of exposure to polonium last fall. Gordievsky had also publicly suggested the new slew of murders of prominent opposition critics means that the FSB has returned to the practice of political assassination, which was formerly conducted by the 13th KGB department.
On Oct.3. Alexander Bastrykin, the director of the investigation committee at the prosecutor general’s office, contradicted Chaika's earlier statement by suggesting that there are six theories investigators are considering. “We’re investigating all of them thoroughly,” he said.
A weighty volume was compiled by Politkovskaya’s colleagues and friends in an attempt to make sense of her killers’ motives. Politkovskaya’s son says the book is aimed at preserving Politkovskaya’s memory more than anything else, but the book’s title, Za Chto? (For What?) suggests a strong link between Politkovskaya’s reporting and the killers’ motives.
The subjects range from the government’s inactivity in Chechnya, including a lack of hospitals, medical personnel and any kind of humanitarian aid or reconstruction efforts, to Politkovskaya’s involvement in the Beslan hostage crisis. It includes hundreds of interviews with refugees and displaced people, filled with voices of the victims of the country’s worst atrocities over the last seven years.
By choosing topics and interviewing subjects considered taboo for the Russian media, Politkovskaya’s reports always went a step further than abstractly commenting on the government’s inactivity. Covering Chechnya in 2000, Politkovskaya condemned the launch of the antiterrorist operation. “The underlying cause of this process was obvious,” she wrote. “It is to make sure there are as many legless inhabitants of Grozny as possible.”
The investigation of her own murder is following the same kind of trajectory Anna Politkovskaya often described in her reports. Following the Nord-Ost investigation closely, she often commented on the corruption and the government’s conflicting statements, arguing that the case was wrapped up prematurely. In describing the Beslan investigation, Politkovskaya said the law enforcement officials “were quick to reaffirm the government’s earlier statements and suspicions.” |
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