Russia
Retired policeman charged with Politkovskaya murderPosted Sep 14 2011
Former Russian police lieutenant colonel Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov is escorted into a court room in Moscow, Thursday Aug. 25. suspected of organizing the 2006 killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. AP Photo by Ivan Sekretarev
Links
Committee to Protect Journalists
http://www.cpj.org/2011/09/retired-police-official-charged-in-politkovskaya-m.php
Russia’s Investigative Committee made progress in the investigation of the 2006 Politkovskaya murder case Sept. 2 when they charged former Police Colonel Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov with organizing the murder of the renowned journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Investigators discovered that Pavlyuchenkov was paid in late July 2006 to organize Politkovskaya’s murder, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said in an article by the Russian news agency, RIA-Novosti. Russian authorities arrested Pavlyuchenkov Aug. 24.
The Committee also named convicted criminal Lom-Ali Gaitukayev as an organizer of the slaying, according to an article by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Pavlyuchenkov, the then head of surveillance at Moscow’s Main Internal Affairs Directorate, organized a gang with the intent kill the journalist, according to the RIA-Novosti article. He planed the murder, bought the weapon, and assigned tasks among the gang members, according to the article. The article also said the colonel also passed the murder weapon from Gaitukayev to the suspected gunman, Rustam Makhmudov, who was charged in absentia in May 2008 for Politkovskaya’s murder by the Investigative Committee.
Anna Politkovskaya, a correspondent for the Moscow-based tri-weekly Novaya Gazeta, was famous for her investigative reporting on human rights violations in Chechnya. Research by CPJ mentions that she was threatened, jailed, forced into exile and poisoned during her career. On Oct.7, 2006, she was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow. Her death was believed to be work-related.