RUSSIA:A row broke out last night between a press freedom group and Russian authorities over the possible role of Chechen police in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
The Russian foreign ministry last night dismissed claims it had told a visiting US delegation that prosecutors were investigating if Chechen police had murdered Politkovskaya because she was about to reveal their role in torture.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) told a press conference in Moscow yesterday morning this was one of the leads being pursued by the Russian prosecutor general, according to officials they had met from the Russian foreign ministry.
But the ministry last night ridiculed this suggestion. The claims from the CPJ "do not correspond to reality", it stated. At the weekend, the Russian president Vladimir Putin told Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel there was no new breakthroughs in the case.
Politkovskaya was an outspoken reporter who had concentrated much of her writing on human rights abuses in Chechnya.
The barbed riposte came after the CPJ had praised the willingness of Russian officials to meet the delegation. There were also denials from the prosecutor general's office and the Chechen authorities that police officers there were being investigated.
Instead, they said this possible scenario was checked out by Chechen officials following the publication posthumously of an article by Politkovskaya on police torture.
So far no one has yet been convicted of the murder of Politkovskaya or any of the 13 journalists who have died since 2000, when Mr Putin came to power, complained the CPJ.
Three cases have been brought to trial, although convictions have not yet been handed down. Most of the deaths relate either to reporting on Chechnya or on organised crime in Russia.
Nevertheless, the CPJ insisted its comments were accurate: "After CPJ announced its findings at a Tuesday press conference, the foreign ministry issued statements disputing the organisation's account but acknowledging that several theories were being pursued, including one related to Politkovskaya's work."
The ministry said an investigation into police in Chechnya was being carried out by local officials.