In Russia, an accomplice in the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya has been pardoned by President Vladimir Putin. The man fought for Russia in Ukraine and should therefore not return to prison.
Freek Willems
Tue Nov 1421:13
Sergei Khadjikurbanov, a former police officer, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2014 for his role in the murder of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. He was found guilty of providing logistical support for the murder.
After the start of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, he, like many other Russian prisoners, was sent to the front in Ukraine. After a six-month mission, he was allowed to return to Russia and has now been pardoned by the Russian president in return. According to some sources, he would continue to serve in the army even after his pardon.
Politkovskaya’s family and her then employer, the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, reacted with shock to the decision and described it as a “monstrous injustice”. They also denounce that none of them were informed.
A woman lays a flower next to a portrait of Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow (photo 2009).
Critic of Putin
Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow on October 7, 2006. She was 48 at the time. The journalist was one of the most important critics of President Putin at the time and also often reported on human rights violations during the war in the Russian republic of Chechnya.
Her death caused a worldwide outcry. In 2014, almost 8 years after the murder, a total of 5 suspects were convicted. Two men, including the man who pulled the trigger, were sentenced to life in prison. The three others were sentenced to 12, 14 and 20 years (the former police officer) respectively.
The clients were never found. Because Politkovskaya also reported critically about the Moscow-backed rulers in Chechnya, in the last years before her death these were the Kadyrovs, the point is pointed in the direction of the current Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. He emerged as one of Putin’s most loyal allies and is also associated with other (political) murders of Putin’s critics.
Press rules tightened
Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper that Politkovskaya wrote for at the time, has now stopped its activities in Russia itself and now works from abroad, due to the increasingly strict rules in Russia regarding reporting on the war in Ukraine. The newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 .
Nobel Peace Prize winners: “Journalists are the antidote to tyranny”
Today, the rules for the press have, if possible, been tightened even more – in view of the presidential elections in March next year. According to a new decree published today on the Russian government’s website, journalists who do not work for registered media will not be allowed to attend meetings of electoral committees. And only those who have the right to do so according to the law will be allowed to take photos and play images at polling stations.
Many bloggers, independent journalists and employees of Russian media who work from abroad will therefore be left out and will not be able to report from the front row about the polls and the counting of votes.
(C)VRT 2023
Why does this shock some ruskie people that their dicktator pardons murderers? After all, Vlad is also a murderer … even a mass murderer.
So a murderer gets a pardon after 6 months serving in Ukraine, but conscripts are told they will be in Ukraine until the end of the war. Whoever said that crime doesn’t pay, never lived in mafia land.