MOSCOW – Russian authorities have detained a suspect in the killing five years ago of investigative journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, investigators said yesterday.
Rustam Makhmudov, accused of fatally shooting Politkovskaya in Moscow in 2006, was detained in his native province of Chechnya in southern Russia, the federal investigative committee said.
The killing of Politkovskaya, who investigated rights abuses in Chechnya and high-level corruption across Russia, deepened concerns about justice under then-president Vladimir Putin, and spotlighted the risks run by government critics.
Mr Makhmudov was flown to Moscow for questioning, Russian news agencies reported, citing a law enforcement source.
His detention brings a new twist in a case that has brought little satisfaction for state prosecutors or for relatives of Politkovskaya – one of at least a dozen Russian journalists whose politically charged murders have gone unsolved.
Two of Mr Makhmudov’s brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim, were tried with a third man in 2009 for Politkovskaya’s murder, but acquitted. The Supreme Court threw out the decision and returned the case to prosecutors. Rustam Makhmudov avoided capture and remained at large since before that trial, charged in absentia.
Russian authorities had repeatedly said he fled to Europe, and the investigative committee said his capture had been aided by information from authorities in Belgium, where it said he had “been hiding earlier”.
Murad Musayev, a lawyer representing Dzhabrail Makhmudov, said he believed Rustam Makhmudov had been living in Chechnya for at least two years.
Prosecutors said Makhmudov followed Politkovskaya into her Moscow apartment building when she came home, and shot her. His brothers were accused of helping set it up.
The acquittals embarrassed prosecutors after a trial undermined by the absence of the suspected gunman and by uncertainty over who was behind what was widely believed to have been a contract killing. Former colleagues and relatives of Politkovskaya have said justice will not be done until the person or persons behind the killing are identified and prosecuted. – (Reuters)