Murder of Russian journalist remembered
Open trial of suspects sought
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 22:59:00 10/07/2008
Filed Under: Protest, Crime, Murder, Media
MOSCOW -- Kremlin critics rallied in Moscow on Tuesday to mark the second anniversary of the death of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya and to demand an open trial of the murder suspects.
Some 200 people gathered under heavy rain on a central Moscow square to mourn Politkovskaya, who exposed human rights violations in Chechnya and was gunned down outside her Moscow apartment on October 7, 2006.
Speakers pressed authorities for the trial -- due to begin October 15 in a Moscow military court -- to be opened to the public.
Campaigners have complained of a lack of transparency around the trial, in which one defendant, a former secret service agent, is to be tried on charges not directly related to the Politkovskaya case.
"The trial of the killers must be open," Dmitry Muratov, editor of Novaya Gazeta, Politkovskaya's newspaper, told protestors, many of whom held red carnations and portraits of the slain journalist along with umbrellas.
"As long as the killer and the mastermind remain free, the case is not closed," he added.
Other speakers, including former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, linked Politkovskaya's death to shadowy forces in the Russian government angered by her reporting on the war in Chechnya.
"They fear freedom. They fear the truth. They fear everything that Anna Politkovskaya did and stood for," said Kasparov, one of the leaders of a fractured political opposition that made a rare display of unity on the anniversary.
"Anna Politkovskaya was a hero of our time...She wasn't afraid of anything," said Sophia, an 84-year-old retired teacher who braved a ring of police to attend the rally.
Like many protestors, she expressed little faith in investigators, who are currently bringing to trial three men suspected of helping organize the crime and the former secret service agent -- described as "the most mysterious figure in the case" by Novaya Gazeta.
The investigators have so far failed to catch the actual gunman or identify who ordered the killing.
Politkovskaya's death sparked outrage among Western governments and calls for Russia to address the issue of attacks on journalists.
In June, suspected gunman Rustam Makhmudov, an ethnic Chechen, was charged in absentia with the murder. Russian authorities say he has fled to Western Europe.
Police have detained his brothers -- Dzhabrail and Ibragim -- and Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former officer in the Moscow city police's organised crime unit, and accused them of helping organize the murder.
They are due to go on trial October 15 at Moscow Military District Court.
Also on trial is Pavel Ryaguzov, a former officer in Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) who was initially accused of giving Politkovskaya's address to the suspected killers.
Later, authorities said he was accused of abuse of power and extortion, crimes not directly connected with Politkovskaya's killing but committed alongside Khadzhikurbanov.
His status as an FSB officer means the trial of all four is to take place in military court, where it could be held in secret.
This has prompted criticism from Politkovskaya's supporters at home and abroad, including the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
The committee "calls on authorities...to open the trial to the press and the public," CPJ executive director Joel Simon said in a statement Monday.
"Then and only then will a fair trial be possible," he said.
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