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FRANCE24-EN-TOP-STORY-WHO-KILLED-ANNA-POLITKOVSKAYA-?
The creator's telling of the case, the strongest entry point on file.
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Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist, writer and human rights activist known for her reporting on the Second Chechen War and her criticism of President Vladimir Putin, was found shot dead in the elevator of her apartment block in central Moscow on 7 October 2006. Police recovered a Makarov pistol and four shell casings near her body; she had been shot four times, including once in the head, in what was widely reported as a contract-style killing. The date coincided with Putin's 54th birthday, a fact widely noted in subsequent commentary.
Politkovskaya had authored *Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy*, which criticized Putin's handling of the Chechen conflict and accused the FSB of suppressing civil liberties. She had received death threats over her work, reported falling seriously ill after apparently being poisoned in September 2004 while traveling to the Beslan hostage crisis, and had described receiving threats of rape and a mock execution in Chechnya. Former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko later said Politkovskaya had asked him whether her life was in danger shortly before her death; he was fatally poisoned with polonium weeks after publicly accusing Putin of sanctioning her murder.
Her killing prompted international condemnation and protests in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Saratov, Krasnoyarsk, Helsinki, London, Paris, New York and Washington, as well as during a Putin visit to Dresden, Germany.
In August 2007, Russian authorities arrested ten suspects, including members of a Chechen organized-crime group and former FSB agents. Three men — Sergey Khadzhikurbanov, Dzhabrail Makhmudov and Ibragim Makhmudov — were tried for murder, while another suspect, Pavel Ryaguzov, faced lesser charges. On 19 February 2009, a jury acquitted the three defendants; the Supreme Court of Russia later overturned the acquittals on 25 June 2009 and ordered a retrial.
Rustam Makhmudov, alleged by investigators to have fired the fatal shot, was reported hiding in western Europe before being arrested in Chechnya in May 2011. Former police officer Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov was charged in July 2012 with planning the murder and, in December 2012, was convicted and sentenced to 11 years under a plea arrangement; he did not name whoever had hired him. In June 2014, five men were sentenced for the murder, with two receiving life sentences, bringing the total number convicted of charges related to her death to six. In November 2023, it was reported that Khadzhikurbanov received a presidential pardon after serving in Russia's invasion of Ukraine under a signed military contract.
Despite the convictions, commentators including the BBC noted that the identity and motive of whoever ordered the killing was never resolved, and questions remained about why Politkovskaya had reportedly been under FSB surveillance for at least two months before her death.
