|
Russia Arrests Security Staff in Politkovskaya Murder
Russian police arrested state security officers and Interior Ministry staff in connection with last year's murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, which was intended to destabilize the country, the nation's top prosecutor said. ``Unfortunately, current and former members of the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service'' were among 10 people detained after an investigation lasting almost a year, Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika told a news conference in Moscow today, broadcast live on state television. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, is the main successor to the KGB. Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin over his conduct of the second Chechen war, was shot dead in her central Moscow apartment building Oct. 7. The U.S. State Department called the 48-year-old Novaya Gazeta reporter's murder ``an affront to free and independent media and to democratic values.'' The killers sought the ``destabilization of the Russian Federation,'' to undermine the country's leadership and constitutional order, Chaika said. The person who ordered the killing lives outside Russia and was known to Politkovskaya, he said, refusing to elaborate. The head of an organized crime gang from the southern region of Chechnya was also detained in the connection with the journalist's death, Chaika told reporters. Two separate groups, those who planned the killing and those who carried it out, were arrested, he said. Posted by: Fred 2007-08-28 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=197343 |