Five convicted over Politkovskaya murder
Moscow court finds men guilty of 2006 killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, whose writing was critical of Kremlin.
A court in the Russian capital has convicted five men of involvement in the 2006 murder of journalist and activist Anna Politkovskaya, reversing a previous ruling acquitting three of them.
Tuesday’s jury verdict found that Rustam Makhmudov was the gunman who shot Politkovskaya in the lift of her Moscow apartment building in 2006 and that his two brothers, their uncle and a former policeman, were accomplices.
Both brothers and the policeman had been acquitted in a 2009 trial, but the Supreme Court then ordered a new trial.
A judge is expected to sentence the five men on Wednesday, with all of them facing up to life in prison, the AP news agency reported on Wednesday.
Politkovskaya’s work in the Novaya Gazeta newspaper was sharply critical of the Kremlin and its policies in Chechnya. The Makhmudovs and their uncle are of Chechen origin.
Authorities have not identified any person as responsible for ordering the killing.
Sergei Markin, a spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, was quoted by the RIA Novosti state news agency as saying it was pursuing “exhaustive measures” to identify that person or persons.
“We agree with the verdict, but this is only a small part of those who are guilty in the crime,” the journalist’s son Ilya Politkovsky was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency.