International reaction to the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya

The assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist, writer, and recipient of numerous international awards, took place on Saturday, 7 October 2006. She was found shot dead in the elevator of her apartment block in central Moscow. Her murder, viewed as a contract killing, sparked a strong international reaction.

Vitaly Yaroshevsky, deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta where she worked, said: "The first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed for her professional activities. We don't see any other motive for this terrible crime." He said Politkovskaya gave an interview to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty last week in which she said she was a witness in a criminal case against Ramzan Kadyrov in connection with abductions in Chechnya - a case based on her reporting. In that same interview, she called Kadyrov the "Stalin of our days".

Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet President who promoted transparency and democracy and is concerned about the increasing lack of pluralism in the country, became a minority shareholder to support the newspaper Novaya Gazeta this summer. Gorbachev told the Russian news agency Interfax about this assassination: "It is a savage crime against a professional and serious journalist and a courageous woman", "It is a blow to the entire democratic, independent press. It is a grave crime against the country, against all of us." He also said the killing might have been intended to cast a pall over Putin's Kremlin.

On October 10, 2006, Russian president Vladimir Putin spoke out on the murder of Politkovskaya:

With regards to the murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaia, then I have already said and I can say once again that this is a disgusting crime. To kill not only a journalist but also a woman and a mother. And the experts know well... that perhaps because Ms Politkovskaia held very radical views she did not have a serious influence on the political mood in our country. But she was very well known in journalistic circles and in human rights circles. And in my opinion murdering such a person certainly does much greater damage from the authorities’ point of view, authorities that she strongly criticized, than her publications ever did. Moreover, we have reliable, consistent information that many people who are hiding from Russian justice have been harbouring the idea that they will use somebody as a victim to create a wave of anti-Russian sentiment in the world. I do not know who has carried out this crime. But whoever they were and whatever their motives, they are criminals. They must be found, brought to justice and punished. The Russian authorities will do everything they can to ensure that this takes place.

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