Top Russian Human Rights Advocate Murdered in Cold Blood

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22 January 2009 :: J.E. Robertson

A top human rights activist in Russia has been murdered in cold blood, in broad daylight, just one week after the man most negatively impacted by his campaigning, Col. Yuri Budanov, was freed from prison, where he was sent for war crimes in Chechnya. Budanov was convicted of the kidnap, rape, and murder, of Elza Kungaeva, a Chechen woman who was brutally raped, beaten and sodomized, found dead 2 hours after Budanov ordered her abduction.

Budanov was released 18 months early, despite vehement protests from a lawyer representing the victim’s family. Stanislav Markelov, one of Russia’s pre-eminent human rights campaigners, said in a news conference that the early release came only after a false statement made by the prosecution service. According to The Economist:

After the news conference, Mr Markelov walked towards a Moscow metro station along a busy street, accompanied by Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old journalist for Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s most daring remaining independent newspapers. A masked man following behind shot Mr Markelov dead. Ms Baburova chased the killer; he turned and shot her in the head, and she later died. It was about 3pm, barely a mile from the Kremlin. Even by Russian standards this was brazen.

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Markelov was hated by powerful figures in the leadership of groups espousing ultra-nationalist or neo-fascist ideologies in Russian politics, largely due to his accusations and his campaigning for prosecutions against Russian military and political officials who participated in or were tied to atrocities committed against civilians in Chechnya. For many observers, it obviously defies credulity for anyone to assert that there is no connection between Budanov’s release and the killing of Markelov and Baburova.

Moscow’s chief of police, Vladimir Bronin, has said he will immediately organize an investigative task force, bringing together the nation’s top investigators to track down the killer. Security cameras captured blurred images of the shooter, and officials are working to get information that may reveal the identity of the slim young man seen in the video footage.

Mr. Markelov had accused Col. Budanov of continued threats against the family of the victim, Elza Kungaeva, but Budanov is reported to have criticized the killing, alleging it was carried out by someone who seeks to drive a wedge between Russia and Chechen interests, to undermine the pro-Kremlin elements in Chechen politics, already widely accused of brutal human rights abuses.

The killing of Anastasia Baburova, taken with having worked for Novaya Gazeta, harkens back to the brazen killing of Anna Politkovskaya, a campaigning investigative journalist who also worked for the newspaper. Critics say political killings are destroying any chance Russia has for establishing a viable democratic system of government, and the shameful impunity with which these killings are carried out suggests something deadly wrong with the Russian political system.

Politkovskaya was murdered on then President Vladimir Putin’s birthday, a clear sign by whoever the murderers were that they wanted to silence a high-profile voice against official abuses. Her murder has still not been resolved, and the trial has again been suspended, this time because one defendant’s lawyer was unavailable for a scheduled questioning hearing. Many say the trial itself is a show-trial and that the true masterminds have not been sought or brought to justice.

Colleagues from the newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, repeatedly accused state officials of involvement in the killing, and a Wikipedia report on the assassination reads:

According to Russian state security officer Alexander Litvinenko, Politkovskaya asked him if her life was in imminent danger before the assassination. He confirmed the danger and recommended her to escape from Russia immediately. He also asserted that former presidential candidate Irina Hakamada warned Politkovskaya about threats to her life coming from Putin.

The problem is far more pervasive than journalists and human rights lawyers, amounting to a kind of reign of terror against opponents of the most aggressive proponents of centralized state power in Russia. Litvinenko himself was notoriously murdered by uranium poisoning, in a case that rocked the European Union and appears to have produced evidence that Russian-linked operatives spread a trail of radioactive material across several European cities in order to murder the ex-spy. The Economist also reports:

The list of dead journalists, campaigners for civil liberties and those who seriously harm the interests of over-mighty state officials is getting longer by the day. On January 13th a former Chechen rebel, Umar Israilov, who had turned against Mr Kadyrov and formally complained to the European Court of Human Rights of his involvement in kidnappings and torture, was gunned down in Vienna.

Last August Magomed Yevloyev, a journalist and owner of an opposition internet site in another north Caucasus republic, Ingushetia, was detained and “accidentally” shot by an interior ministry guard. His supporters blamed Ingushetia’s then president and interior minister. To the joy of the whole republic the Kremlin fired both men in October. But on December 30th Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, appointed the former interior minister to a new job of “federal inspector” in Moscow. Impunity, it seems, still prevails.

Tensions between the west and Russia have been increasingly strained as power has become concentrated under a power bloc headed by PM Vladimir Putin. Three years ago, Russia cut off natural gas supplies to European nations in what appeared to be a clear attempt to force prices higher and intimidate foreign governments, using the much needed heating fuel as a political weapon. That exercise was repeated this month, putting the lives of tens of thousands at risk across central and eastern European Union countries and likely contributing to hundreds of deaths from exposure to extreme cold.

The European Union has persistently demanded an accounting from Russia for such killings and has threatened to reorganize its energy policy to exclude Russia’s gas monopoly from the EU market altogether, if such tactics are not abandoned. At present, the Putin-Medvedev bloc appears undaunted and unwilling to moderate its policies on any of these fronts. The radicalization and militarization of Russian state media under Putin’s presidency has been heavily criticized as emblematic of a Stalinist philosophy of power and propaganda, both of which are alleged by critics to be deployed to enforce impunity for official crimes.