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Moscow Court Sentences 5 to Prison for Contract Killing of Journalist Moscow Court Sentences 5 to Prison for Contract Killing of Journalist
(35 minutes later)
MOSCOW — Moscow’s highest criminal court on Monday sentenced five men to prison, including two to life sentences, for the 2006 murder of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. MOSCOW — Moscow’s highest criminal court on Monday sentenced five men to prison, including two to life sentences, for the 2006 murder of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, but left unsolved the question of who ordered the most high-profile killing of a Russian journalist of the last decade.
Ms. Politkovskaya’s murder, a contract killing that many believe was prompted by her reporting in the Russian republic of Chechnya, was the most high-profile killing of a journalist in Russia in the past decade. Ms. Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter known for scathing criticisms of Kremlin policies in the Russian republic of Chechnya and of the local strongman leader Ramzan A. Kadyrov, was 48 when she was shot to death in a contract killing in her Moscow apartment block.
Ms. Politkovskaya was 48 when she was shot to death in the elevator of her Moscow apartment block. She had been highly critical of the Kremlin’s policies in Chechnya and of the republic’s autocratic leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, for the human rights abuses taking place there.
The sentences for the men, who were convicted last month, were the toughest punishment to date in the long-running investigation into Ms. Politkovskaya’s death, but it is still unclear who paid for and ordered the killing. The Investigative Committee of Russia, the country’s highest investigative body, has said that it is still trying to determine who orchestrated the killing of Ms. Politkovskaya.
On Monday, Judge Pavel Melyokhin sentenced Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, the organizer of the team that murdered Ms. Politkovskaya, and his nephew Rustam Makhmudov, the gunman, to life sentences in prison.On Monday, Judge Pavel Melyokhin sentenced Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, the organizer of the team that murdered Ms. Politkovskaya, and his nephew Rustam Makhmudov, the gunman, to life sentences in prison.
Ibragim Makhmudov was sentenced to 12 years and Dzhabarail Makhmudov to 14 years for following Ms. Politkovskaya’s movements the day she was killed. The two men are brothers of Rustam Makhmudov. The sentences for the men, who were convicted last month, marked the toughest punishment to date in the long-running investigation into Ms. Politkovskaya’s death.
A fifth man, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, was sentenced to 20 years for serving as a middleman in the crime. Yet that investigation has yielded little publicly about who wanted Ms. Politkovskaya killed and why.
The lawyers representing Ms. Politkovskaya’s son and daughter could not be immediately reached for comment. “The case cannot be closed because it has not been solved,” Vera Politkovskaya, Ms. Politkovskaya’s daughter, said by telephone.
Critics have claimed there is a lack of political will in Russia to finding who stood behind Ms. Politkovskaya’s killing. After her death, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin at a news conference in Dresden sought to play down Ms. Politkovskaya’s influence, calling her reporting “extremely insignificant for political life in Russia.”
Ms. Politkovskaya’s murder, Mr. Putin said, brought Russia “far greater injuries and damage than her publications.”
Since then, the investigation has lumbered forward with arrests, releases and retrials. In 2012, Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, a retired police lieutenant colonel, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for organizing surveillance of Ms. Politkovskaya before her murder, but denied he had ordered the killing.
On Monday, Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, said that “exhaustive measures are currently being taken to establishing the person who ordered the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.”
“All we can do is rely on the promises of the Investigative Committee,” Ms. Politkovskaya’s daughter said.
On Monday, two men, Ibragim and Dzhabarail Makhmudov, were sentenced to 12 and 14 years, respectively, for following Ms. Politkovskaya’s movements the day she was killed.
A fifth man, Sergey Khadzhikurbanov, a former police officer, was sentenced to 20 years for serving as an accomplice in the killing.
Ms. Politkovskaya’s killing was one of several in recent years to bring attention to a culture of violence against journalists in Russia. Others included Paul Klebnikov, the Forbes Russia editor gunned down in Moscow in 2004, and Natalya Estemirova, a human rights activist who was kidnapped in Chechnya in 2009 and found dead several hours later in neighboring Ingushetia.
Tanya Lokshina, Russia’s program director for Human Rights Watch, said that in many of the cases, “impunity has prevailed.” The attention devoted to Ms. Politkovskaya’s case had put pressure on the authorities to produce some results.
“It is a very high-profile murder case, it made all the headlines,” Ms. Lokshina said. “It was very clear that they had to show something and that’s what happened today.”
“But they did not go after the big guy, the one who actually ordered it,” she added.