Trial of Accused in Politkovskaya Murder to Be Held in Open Court

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18 November 2008 :: J.E. Robertson

Hearings for the prosecution of Politkovskaya’s murder began behind closed doors after one of her family’s lawyers was allegedly poisoned while abroad

Despite urging from the Russian prosecutors and the potential national-security implications of a case involving at least one former FSB (successor to KGB) agent, the trial of those accused of conspiring in the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya will be held in open court. The first trial hearings began “behind closed doors”, and Karina Moskalenko —a human rights lawyer working with Politkovskaya’s family— was allegedly poisoned while in France.

Moskalenko and those close to her say she was poisoned by a mysterious “mercury-like” substance, traces of which were found in her car. (She has recovered and no one has been prosecuted for the alleged poisoning.) The prosecution has been slow and controversial. One year after Politkovskaya’s death, in October 2007, protesters across Russia rallied in support of the slain reporter, demanding a comprehensive, open and relentless prosecution of her murderers.

Politkovskaya was a determined investigative reporter and critic of the Kremlin and of corruption and the use of violence by the powerful inside and outside the apparatus of government. Many alleged her killing had some tie to FSB and to then president, now prime minister, Vladimir Putin, a charge exacerbated first by Mr. Putin’s cold reaction to her death, then by the arrest and indictment of a former FSB agent. The prosecution alleges a conspiracy of diverse interests, apparently focused in Chechnya, and including corrupt political and business figures.

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Mr. Putin maintained from the first that he was not involved and that if there were any involvement of government agents, they must be rogues in league with corrupt interests or enemies of the state. While not providing any intelligence to support the claims, Putin remained popular and the investigation has been focused elsewhere. As public pressure mounted, Pres. Putin vowed he would spare no effort to bring the star reporter’s killers to justice.

The three men brought before the court yesterday maintain their innocence and have said they hope they will be given a fair trial. There has been concern from the outset that authorities might be seeking to conceal some sort of official involvement in the killing or even some accidental link to shady dealings. There have been allegations the accused have been targeted both as patsies and to settle scores unrelated to the Politkovskaya killing.

Politkovskaya wrote a book denouncing Putin’s presidency as a sign of Russia’s “failing democracy”, and alleged he was working to set up a “Soviet-style dictatorship”. She called on Russians to take responsibility for the vices of their political class, in a democratic sense, saying “it is we who are responsible for Putin’s policies”.

In her own words, Russia was…

hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it’s total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial—whatever our special services, Putin’s guard dogs, see fit.

In its World Report 2007, Human Rights Watch reported that:

The murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya profoundly shocked the human rights movement in Russia and internationally and symbolized the further deterioration of the human rights situation in Russia. Meanwhile, the Kremlin has tightened its grip on human rights organizations and other independent institutions.

Grave human rights abuses persist in Chechnya, including torture, abductions, and forced disappearances, and the conflict threatens to spill over into other regions of the northern Caucasus.

The northern Caucasus experienced that spilling over in violent fashion when the Georgian region of South Ossetia saw Russia launch a ground invasion of Georgia from its territory this summer. The crisis severely strained diplomatic relations with the West and saw Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili warning that Pres. Medvedev and PM Putin were planning a vast expansion of Russia’s territory, by military force.

In 2007, HRW’s report “The Pen put to the Sword” examined Russia’s record on treatment of independent journalists:

Of the 13 contract-style murders of journalists in Putin’s Russia, none of the killers has been brought to justice; in most cases, the authorities have failed even to undertake a meaningful investigation. All 13 were apparently killed in connection with their work. Many more reporters have suffered physical attacks, criminal prosecution and persistent harassment.

The BBC’s report on the newly opened trial, from just yesterday, notes: “The suspected killer remains at large, and Ms Politkovskaya’s supporters say there is little likelihood the trial will reveal who ordered her killing.”Perhaps her most dangerous reporting had been done in and with connection to issues involving Chechnya. Her last article was a denunciation of the corruption and indiscriminate brutality of pro-Kremlin militia there.

In a 2000 article, entitled “Hell”, she wrote about life in the Chechen capital Grozny: “Living streets full of dead eyes. Mad and half-mad people. Streets teeming with weapons. Mines everywhere. Permanent explosions. Despair.” The BBC’s obituary for her, in 2006, praised her singular courage, noting that she often reported “at great personal risk, whether reporting from the war zone or receiving death threats in Moscow.”

Calling her “Russia’s most fearless journalist”, the Washington Post published her own written prediction of a violent death, and reported that:

She received one death threat after another, and was detained and beaten by Russian troops who threw her into a pit, threatened to rape her and performed a mock execution. “If it were up to me,” an officer told her, “I’d shoot you.”

Politkovskaya wrote that she was “a pariah” in Putin’s Russia, that “Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s deputy chief of staff, explained that there were people who were enemies but whom you could talk sense into, and there were incorrigible enemies who simply needed to be “cleansed” from the political arena.” She specified that Putin’s government was actively trying to “cleanse” the political landscape of her.

She wrote, with haunting clarity, that Chechen premier Ramzan Kadyrov “publicly vowed to murder me. He said during a meeting of his government that he had had enough, and that Politkovskaya was a condemned woman” for having reported about an incident in which Russian forces working with the Moscow-backed Chechen regional government had decapitated a rebel leader and put his severed head on display.

She that “people in Chechnya are afraid for me, and I find that very touching. They fear for me more than I fear for myself, and that is how I survive.” She added “So what is the crime that has earned me this label of not being “one of us”? I have merely reported what I have witnessed, no more than that.” She lamented the hardship of a pariah lifestyle, constantly under attack or threat from enemies in the government or in the private sphere, but she pledge to “get on with my job” and tell the story of a troubled people, despite the danger to herself.

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