Anna Politkovskaya's Suspected Killer, Rustam Makhmudov, Has Been Arrested: Russian Officials
MOSCOW — Russian security forces on Tuesday arrested the suspected triggerman in the 2006 killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building.
But investigators have remained silent about who might have ordered the killing of Politkovskaya, a sharp critic of the Kremlin and its appointed strongman in Chechnya.
The brutal attack drew worldwide attention to violence against journalists in Russia, rated one of the most dangerous countries in the world for reporters. Suspicions of government involvement in the killing were widespread.
The suspect, Rustam Makhmudov, was arrested in his native Chechnya and flown to Moscow, said the Investigative Committee, the top criminal investigation body. It said he had previously been hiding in Belgium and fled the country after the Belgian authorities had intensified the search for him at Russia's request.
Makhmudov's two brothers were among three men accused of playing minor roles in the killing, as lookout and getaway driver. The third suspect, a former Moscow police officer, was accused of supplying the murder weapons. A court found them not guilty in 2009, but the Russian Supreme Court overruled the acquittal and has sent the case back to prosecutors.
Sergei Sokolov, deputy editor of Politkovskaya's Novaya Gazeta newspaper, welcomed the announcement of Makhmudov's arrest, saying on Russia's Channel One television that investigators must step up their work and expose others who were involved in the crime.
But Anna Stavitskaya, a lawyer for the Politkovskaya family, voiced skepticism that Makhmudov's arrest would help investigators catch the person who ordered the killing.
"They must find the mastermind of that crime," Stavitskaya told The Associated Press. "They have failed to do that because our investigative agencies simply lack the skills to do that."
She said that Makhmudov should have been arrested years ago and voiced surprise that he managed to sneak from Belgium back into Russia even though an international warrant had been issued for his arrest.
"The fact that a person accused of a high-profile crime could easily cross the border shows how our services work," she said.
Oleg Orlov, the head of respected rights group Memorial, voiced hope that Makhmudov's arrest would help speed up the investigation.
"His absence in the first trial to a large extent contributed to the collapse of the case," Orlov was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency. "It's obvious that the arrest will give the investigation another chance and overcome a deadlock."
However, Murad Musayev, a lawyer who defended one of Makhmudov's brothers during the 2008-2009 trial, argued that it was obvious then that investigators lacked evidence to prove his guilt.
Musayev argued that the man in a baseball cap caught on a security camera walking into Politkovskaya's apartment building moments before the killing and leaving immediately afterward looked nothing like Makhmudov.
"That makes me think that the investigators have either made a mistake or deliberately sought to delude the public," he said.
"I don't think that the investigators want to find the truth," Musayev told the AP. "What they want is to find a way to declare the crime solved."
Politkovskaya, who was 48 when she died, won international acclaim for her reports on violence, police oppression and corruption in Chechnya and other parts of the Russian Caucasus gripped by an Islamic insurgency. She was a sharp critic of then-Russian President Vladimir Putin and his chosen strongman in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
Putin remained silent for three days after Politkovskaya's killing and then said that her influence on Russian political life was "extremely insignificant."
The inconclusive investigation and the botched trial added to suspicions of government involvement in the killing.
"Some think that the person who ordered the killing may have been so powerful that investigators won't be allowed to name him," Musayev told the AP. "I don't necessarily share that view, but I can't exclude it."
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Jim Heintz contributed to this report.
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VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV 05/31/11 02:53 PM ET Associated Press