Politkovskaya's killers sentenced

This is not really the end of the story as we still do not know (officially) who ordered the murder but the five people who were found guilty after three had been acquitted but a retrial ordered by the Supreme Court, have now been sentenced.

Rustam Makhmudov was given a life sentence for pulling the trigger.

His uncle Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, one of those found guilty of organising the murder, was also jailed for life.

The three others convicted of the killing - two of whom are Makhmudov's brothers - were given between 12 and 20 years in prison.

Last year a former police officer, Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, who was first produced as a rather odd witness for the prosecution, was found guilty of supplying the gun and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment. So far as anyone knows he is still serving that sentence.

Meanwhile, Politkovskaya family is threatening to continue campaigning until the person who actually ordered the assassination is identified and tried. In the past the Russian Investigative Committee stated [in Russian] that the time for that revelation had not come. Now they give a slightly different opinion:

Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee, said that "unfortunately much depends on our foreign colleagues, especially from Great Britain and Turkey. We have sent a number of inquiries, but have never received any response."

This is a little mysterious. To whom had they sent those inquiries and what about? Perhaps if they made the names of the recipients public, pressure could be put on them to provide some kind of response? Hmmmm?

This account in Deutsche Welle is more detailed but there is no mention as to who in Great Britain or Turkey might be in position to provide the answers to the questions Politkovskaya's family and colleagues are still asking.

The Politkovskaya saga goes on

Five people, three of whom were found not guilty in 2009, have now been found guilty of the murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya. I have written about the case, most recently here about the arrest of Lt-Col. Pavlyuchenkov, here about the muddled developments and here about the sentencing of Dmitri Pavlyuchenkov to 11 years for his role in the assassination though, thanks to a plea bargaining he had not had to give evidence at his trial, thus leaving the question of who actually ordered the murder wide open.

So now we have the brothers Makhmudov, their uncle and another retired policeman guilty of the murder and waiting to be sentenced tomorrow. In 2009 the three brothers had been found innocent but the verdict was overturned by the supreme court and they were tried again. Presumably, had they not been found guilty this time they would have been tried again and again.

There are a few oddities in the case as anyone who has followed it even superficially can attest, not least the question as to who are these Chechnyans who assassinated the journalist who had written articles that were strongly critical of the Russian government and the Russian troops' behaviour in Chechnya and surrounding republics?

Nor has the vital question of who was behind the murder been solved.

A committee set up to investigate the shooting said it was still looking for the person who ordered the operation.

Naturally, nobody can think of a possible answer to that question.

Catching up on Russia

I am aware of not having covered the Magnitsky saga recently and shall do so very soon, particularly as it involves the unhappy fate of the Conservative Friends of Putin Russia.

For the moment, let me just direct readers of this blog to an article in the Wall Street Journal [if the link does not work properly go through Google].

The so-called Magnitsky Law, named after Sergey Magnitsky, imprisoned, tortured and murdered for his attempts to do his duty as a lawyer employed by a British firm, is part of a larger bill to normalize trade with Russia. This piece of legislation, whose aim is to prevent specific abusers of human rights in Russia from entering the USA was passed by the Senate last week by 92 votes against 4 but is still awaiting President Obama's signature. There has already been what might be termed an  organized response from Russia.

On its Twitter account, the foreign ministry in Moscow called the human rights statute "something out of the theater of the absurd." Another tweet said, "It is perplexing and preposterous to hear human rights complaints from the US, where torture and kidnapping are legal in the 21st century." And: "This biased approach is nothing but a vindictive desire to counter Russia in world affairs."

Same old, same old.

The Kremlin has for months made vague threats of retribution against the U.S. if the Magnitsky law passed. And on Thursday Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the law and recommended to the Duma some "adequate but not exorbitant" retaliation.

As the WSJ says:

Please fume away, Mr. Putin. Let the Russian people know that the U.S. continues to care about rights and democratic freedoms. They might have gotten the wrong impression in recent years.

They might still get the wrong impression:

Throughout the first term President Obama has pushed a "reset" in relations with Russia, muting criticism of Mr. Putin's slide to authoritarianism. The Administration tried to kill the Magnitsky Act, and in his statement on its passage Mr. Obama pointedly failed even to mention Magnitsky or the provision named after him in the new law. We can be grateful that at least Congress was willing to stand up for American values.

UPDATE: President Obama has signed legislation "granting normal trade relations to Russia, which angered Moscow by including sanctions targeting alleged Russian human rights abusers". The Magnitsky Act is now in place in the United States.

Meanwhile, in Russia

A former Russian policeman has been sentenced to 11 years in a prison camp for his role in the 2006 death of an anti-Kremlin journalist.

Friday's sentencing of Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov by the Moscow city court came at the end of a plea bargain process that qualified him for a reduced sentence in exchange for his co-operation in the case.

Pavlyuchenkov was accused of tracking Anna Politkovskaya so she could be assassinated and of giving the shooter the gun with which the journalist was killed.

Having confessed his guilt, the defendant was ordered to pay $98,000 to the victim's family.

Unsurprisingly, Politkovskaya's family is unhappy with this turn of events. They do not mind Pavlyuchenkov being sentenced (though one wonders how many of those 11 years he will serve) but they dislike the idea of the plea bargaining as that meant he did not have to testify. No testimony - no evidence about who actually was behind the killing. (Here are the previous postings on the Politkovskaya case.)

And again

The writer, journalist and human rights campaigner was murdered in the hallway of her Moscow apartment house in 2006. In 2009 three men were put on trial for the murder and were acquitted, which, as I wrote at the time, was not altogether surprising.

The man who is supposed to have done the actual killing, Rustam Makhmudov, was not on trial as he is supposed to be hiding somewhere in Western Europe. Neither was anybody who was accused of organizing or commissioning the killing.

Makhmudov's two brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim, were accused of involvement and found not guilty to their and their supporers' understandably delight. Others found not guilty were former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov and former FSB officer Pavel Ryaguzov who had been up on an extortion charge related to the case.

At the time it seemed unlikely that the case would ever be solved. It still seems a little unlikely but, as RFE/RL reports, five people have now been charged with murder and illegal arms dealing. The names seem oddly familiar:

The Russian Investigation Committee said in an October 16 statement that it "has completed the investigation against five defendants -- brothers Rustam, Ibragim, and Dzhabrail Makhmudov, and Sergei Khadzhikurbanov and Lom-Ali Gaitukayev."

AP gives a few more details:

Russia's Investigative Committee said it has completed a probe of the suspected triggerman, Rustam Makhmudov, and four others. No date for the trial has been set.

Makhmudov's two brothers and a Moscow police officer have already stood trial, charged with helping stage the killing. But a court acquitted them in 2009. Russia's Supreme Court overruled the acquittal and sent the case back to investigators.

Authorities have since arrested Makmudov and his uncle, Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, who is accused of organizing the killing. The Moscow police officer who faced the initial trial, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, is still in custody, while the two Makhmudov brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim, have been ordered to remain in Moscow pending a new trial.

The committee said it will still try to find out who ordered the murder and look for others who might have been involved.

I wonder if they are serious about finding out who ordered the murder. If so, I wish them luck.

On the whole it was depressing

I went to see the film about Anna Politkovskaya, which, I find, has won the Best Documentary award at the World Film Festival in Montreal. I did not think it was that good as a film but the experience of watching Politkovskaya and her family and friends as well as listening to them all discussing her life and work was fascinating. So, on the whole, I am glad the film won that prize. Perhaps, it means that the distribution will be wider than is usual for documentaries. In December it is due to be shown in Russia.

Of course, Politkovskaya was a courageous, inspiring and highly irritating person. It is clear that many people who worked with her found her difficult and several journalists accused her of being unprofessional in that she yielded too much to emotion. On the other hand, one has to say that she went to all those places, talked to all those people and checked the stories out.

The story is depressing in general and in detail. Her death by violence is appalling and the fact that five years on the investigation is still a mess with no sign of it ever being adequately cleared up (though the culprits are known) is a blot on Russian reality.

A reminder of such matters as the theatre siege in Moscow and the Beslan school siege and their ghastly endings with no investigation of what went wrong each time had many people surreptitiously blowing their noses into their handkerchiefs; the whole dreadful saga of the two Chechen wars and of the atrocities on both sides visited on the civilian population between can never be forgotten. But, worst of all, this was a tale of lost hope for the whole country. We heard a good deal of the bright expectations of the early nineties (why the film had a longish interview with Gorbachev still fighting his battle with Yeltsin is a mystery) and their dissipation. With Vladimir Putin about to become President for another 12 years the sight of Yeltsin winning that battle against the Putschists of 1993 is just too hard to bear.

I am shocked, I tell you, shocked

A retired Russian police officer has been arrested in connection with the five-year old murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

During the first hearing for the case, retired police officer Lt. Col. Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov appeared as a witness for state prosecutors. Now, however, he has become a suspect. Investigators believe he may have accepted payment from "a person whose identity is still unknown" for organizing the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Russian news agencies on Tuesday.

The suspect is also believed to have arranged for the alleged murderer Rustam Makhmudov to receive money, a pistol and a silencer to complete the act in 2006. Arrested in late May of this year in Chechnya, Makhmudov stands accused of having shot Politkovskaya in the elevator of her apartment building some 5 years ago.

But police remain uncertain who might have commissioned Pavlyuchenkov to arrange the killing, the spokesman said, adding that he appears to be just one link in a chain of those involved.

The Moscow Times describes Lt. Col. Pavlyuchenkov as "a mumbling secret witness for prosecutors at a failed trial into her killing".

Investigators believe that Pavlyuchenkov arranged the murder of Politkovskaya, a Novaya Gazeta reporter who was shot dead in her apartment building in downtown Moscow, after being contacted by the mastermind, the committee said in a statement Wednesday.

The committee did not specify the price of the contract killing but said it "has information about the alleged mastermind of the crime." No details were available.

The committee said Pavlyuchenkov assembled a team to carry out the killing. Earlier reports said the team comprised three Chechen brothers with the surname Makhmudov — Rustam, Ibragim and Dzhabrail — and a former officer with Moscow police's anti-mafia department, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov.

Pavlyuchenkov, who served as chief of a Moscow police investigative unit at the time, ordered his police subordinates to trail Politkovskaya to "determine her daily routes around the city," it said.

He is also suspected of procuring the gun used by the suspected triggerman, Rustam Makhmudov, who spent five years on the run in Europe but was arrested in May upon his return to Chechnya.

The other two Makhmudovs are accused of helping track Politkovskaya, while Khadzhikurbanov is considered a middleman in the case.

The case against the three fell apart when a jury acquitted them in 2009. But the Supreme Court overturned the verdict, prompting a new investigation, which is in progress.

Well, now, I wonder who that "mastermind" could be. The Investigative Committee's statement [in Russian]states that revealing that information is deemed to be premature.