By Stone Martindale Oct 8, 2006, 18:13 GMT
Russia's Prosecutor General has taken control of the investigation into the execution style killing of award-winning journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin, after she was massacred in an entryway in her apartment building in Moscow on Saturday.
A woman mourns in front of the portrait of prominent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in St.Petersburg, Sunday, 08 October 2006. EPA/ANATOLY MALTSEV
An outspoken critic of Putin's policies, Anna Politkovskaya books include "Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy'' and "A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya.'' She was found shot dead at the elevator entrance to her apartment building on Lesnaya Ulitsa, a couple of miles from the Kremlin. She was 48 years old.
"The Prosecutor General of Russia, Yuri Chaika, has taken under his personal control the criminal investigation into the murder,'' the prosecutor's office said on its Web site.
"This decision was taken by the Prosecutor General in connection with the special significance and broad social resonance of the case,'' the statement said, adding that the investigation is considering Politkovskaya's "professional activity.''
State television aired grainy surveillance footage of a young man wearing a baseball cap entering Politkovskaya's building, and said police wanted to question him in connection with the murder.
"She attacked Russian officials for being brutal and unfair to Chechens, especially women and children,'' said Nikolai Zlobin, director of the World Security Institute and a friend of Politkovskaya. "She never cared about financial satisfaction, but about justice.''
The U.S. State Department has urged Russia to conduct an immediate investigation, saying in a statement it is "shocked and profoundly saddened'' by Politkovskaya's murder. "The intimidation and murder of journalists, 12 in Russia in the past six years, is an affront to free and independent media and to democratic values,'' the statement said.
The World Association of Newspapers condemned "an outrageous attack not only on a journalist but on freedom of the press and democracy in Russia,'' in a statement on its Web site.
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht, whose country holds the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the continent's main democracy and human rights watchdog, condemned the murder of "one of Russia's most outstanding investigative journalists and political commentators'' in a statement.
Paul Klebnikov, a U.S. born editor of Forbes Magazine in Russia, was shot dead in Moscow in July 2004. Klebnikov was at the time the 11th journalist to be murdered in a contract-style killing since Putin took office in 2000. No one has been brought to justice in any of the killings, according to the New York- based Committee to Protect Journalists.
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