Russian Impunity

The second jury trial of two men in the July 2004 murder of Forbes Russia Editor Paul Klebnikov had to be postponed again Wednesday after one of the defendants went missing. It was the second time that Kazbek Dukuzov, who is 32 or 33, failed to turn up at the Moscow City Court. Dukuzov missed a February hearing. Musa Vakhaev, accused of murdering U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov, speaks to...

Ivan Safronov did not die immediately, despite falling four floors from a window in his Moscow apartment block. Witnesses say he tried to get to his feet after hitting the ground, but then collapsed for the final time. The police say the death of the well-respected journalist, who worked for the daily Kommersant newspaper, has all the hallmarks of suicide - though they are willing to consider the...

Reporters Without Borders voiced scepticism today about a claim made by Chechnya’s acting President Ramzan Kadyrov at a news conference in Grozny on 20 February that Boris Berezovsky (a Russian businessman and former politician now living in exile in Britain) ordered the murders of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. Kadyrov claimed that he was personally present...

The Chechnya prosecutor’s office is investigating officers of the southern republic’s Interior Ministry in connection with articles by the slain investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, according to the Moscow business daily Kommersant. The daily Wednesday quoted Chechnya prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov as saying that Politkovskaya’s accounts of alleged torture last spring prompted his office to...

Some police officials in Chechnya are under criminal investigation for a possible role in the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent Russian journalist, a New York-based news media rights group said here on Tuesday. The assertion, by the Committee to Protect Journalists, cast fresh attention on the possibility of an official role in a crime that was roundly condemned in the West, and drew a...

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to take measures to encourage press freedom in Russia and forgo control and influence over the media. WAN President Gavin O'Reilly opened the 59th World Newspaper Congress and 13th World Editors Forum in Moscow Monday by telling the president that his legacy would be judged "as much by the fate of the media...