RUSSIA: Russian prosecutors say they have detained 10 suspects in the murder of reporter Anna Politkovskaya

Russian prosecutors have detained 10 people in connection with the killing of crusading reporter Anna Politkovskaya. Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika told President Vladimir Putin they had made "serious progress" in the murder investigation and would soon be in a position to charge suspects. Politkovskaya, a fierce Putin critic, was active in exposing abuses by Moscow's security forces in the Chechnya region. She was shot dead on October 7, 2006, as she stepped out of her apartment in Moscow. Two of the bullets hit her in the head. She was 48 years old. Putin said at the time everything possible would be done to find and punish her killers. But Politkovskaya's murder brought a wave of international condemnation and prompted concern the Kremlin was not protecting freedom of speech. Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper where Politkovskaya worked, gave the arrests a cautious welcome. It said it believed the 10 included members of an "ethnic" organised group as well as serving and former law enforcement officers. "The investigation was carried out professionally, we have no grounds so far to doubt its findings and we think it will continue in this way," said Novaya Gazeta Chief Editor Sergei Sokolov. Later at a news conference Prosecutor-General Chaika said the suspects were part of an organised crime group that might also be linked to the 2004 murder in Moscow of U.S. reporter Paul Klebnikov and central bank deputy chief Andrei Kozlov. Chaika identified former and acting interior ministry and FSB (Federal Security Service) officials among those arrested. Prosecutors said Politkovskaya's killing was probably linked to her reporting. She made regular trips to report on the Kremlin's anti-insurgency operations in Chechnya and surrounding regions. Her reporting attracted the attention of officials and the security forces. On one trip, she said she was arrested and held in a pit for three days in Chechnya. She received numerous death threats. Politkovskaya said she had been unable to cover the bloody hostage-taking at a school in Beslan in 2004, in which more than 330 children and parents died, because she was poisoned on the flight from Moscow and ended up in hospital. She held Putin personally responsible for the rights abuses she documented. Politkovskaya's murder was the most high-profile killing of a journalist in Russia since the shooting of Klebnikov in 2004.

ITN Source | August 28, 2007

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