Russian Journalist Murdered

Russia Labeled As ‘Uniquely Hostile’ Place For Journalists

(CBS/AP)  Dmitry Kholodov, a reporter who investigated military corruption, was killed in October 1994 when a briefcase he had picked up at a Moscow train station following an anonymous call blew up in his office. Colleagues said he had been told it contained evidence.

Six men charged in the killing, including four former members of an elite paratroops unit, were acquitted in two separate trials, in 2002 and 2004; the Russian Supreme Court upheld those rulings in June 2005.

Natalya Skryl, a business reporter for Nashe Vremya in Rostov-on-Don, was beaten over the head in March 2002 and died the next day. Colleagues said she had been investigating a dispute over control of a metals plant, and that was the most probable reason for her murder.

Investigators initially excluded robbery as a motive in the killing — because she had jewelry and a large sum of cash on her when she was found — but later ruled the opposite, according to CPJ.

“It is extremely important to break the circle of inconclusive investigations in regard of the recent murders of journalists in Russia,” said Miklos Haraszti, the media freedom advocate of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. “The violent death of any member of the media stifles the free spirit of journalism. But in this case, the expediency of action is extremely important also because Anna Politkovskaya was an outspoken critic of government policies.”

Suspicion in the killing of Politkovskaya, whose body was found in the elevator in her apartment building on Saturday, has fallen on the Moscow-backed Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov. Politkovskaya, one of the few Russian journalists writing about widespread human rights abuses in Chechnya, had been a persistent critic of Kadyrov, whose security forces are alleged to be involved in widespread abductions and torture.

Novaya Gazeta said on its Web site it believed her murder was either revenge by Kadyrov or an attempt to discredit him.

In a recent radio interview, Politkovskaya said she was a witness in a criminal case against Kadyrov concerning his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of two civilians — an ethnic Russian and a Chechen — who were tortured and killed.

Politkovskaya also angered other powerful people — including the Russian military — with her investigative reporting and human rights advocacy.

Novaya Gazeta said Sunday its reporters would conduct their own investigation, and it called Politkovskaya's slaying revenge for her coverage of Chechnya, which included the story planned for Monday.

“We never got the article, but she had evidence about these (abducted) people and there were photographs,” Deputy Editor Vitaly Yerushensky, told Ekho Moskvy radio.

Politkovskaya's death was the most high-profile slaying of a journalist in Russia since the July 2004 assassination of Paul Klebnikov, the U.S.-born editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine. That crime was believed linked to Klebnikov's investigation of the murky business world in Russia but remains unresolved; two ethnic Chechens accused of carrying it out were acquitted earlier this year.

Dozens of well-wishers came to lay flowers outside the entrance to Politkovskaya's apartment block in downtown Moscow on Sunday and placed flowers and candles outside the newspaper offices.

Hundreds meanwhile rallied in Moscow's Pushkin Square to protest her murder as well as the Russian crackdown on Georgians since a spy row erupted last week.

Underneath a photograph of Politkovskaya, one poster read: “The Kremlin has killed freedom of speech.”

[gramto7]

But don't you remember that his supposed 51% 'win' was his mandate to what he wanted? He must have had one of those 'signing statements' when he took the oath of office.

[alphaa10-2009]

Could it happen here? There are plenty of people who consider themselves above the law, among them, the wannabe president named George Bush.

Bush is the individual who, in November, 2005, facing an assembly of party members critical of his NSA spying program, bristled like a teenager caught drinking after curfew-- "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It just a GD)((#@*! piece of paper!"

Is this figure, who claims to be president of the United States, the same who pledged an oath to "protect, preserve and defend" the document he calls a "GD)((#@*! piece of paper"?

Bush, alone, brought more Big Brother surveillance into the United States than any other president in history, yet there never has been a president so inept in carrying out the mandate of the people.