Moscow – A high-profile case in which Russian police, security officers and others were accused of involvement in the killing of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya appeared to be unraveling Thursday, just days after the arrests were made.
Two suspects, identified previously by a Moscow newspaper as former surveillance specialists for the Moscow police, were reported to have been released. Authorities said a third figure named in the case, a Federal Security Service officer, actually had been arrested in an unrelated probe.
Another newspaper reported that a fourth suspect was in prison at the time of the slaying.
Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin who gained international acclaim for her reporting on Moscow’s actions in war-torn Chechnya, was gunned down in October.
Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika announced Monday that 10 suspects had been arrested, including former and current officers of the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service, the domestic successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB. Those officers had worked with a Chechen-led contract murder gang, Chaika said.
Some Russian media reported that 11 suspects had been detained.
“The big problem now is that after the prosecutor general made his statement, lots of leaks began both from official and unofficial sources, which creates a huge problem for the investigation,” said Sergei Sokolov, deputy editor in chief of Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper where Politkovskaya worked.
“I don’t want to comment on why some suspects were released today because that may also harm the investigation,” he added. “All I can say now is that all the people arrested several days ago still may have something to do with the murder.”
With her critical reporting, Politkovskaya made many enemies among Russia’s security and military forces and among supporters of pro-Moscow Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. Her admirers suggested after her death that people from these groups might have been responsible.
But pro-Kremlin media and Putin himself suggested that her slaying had been ordered by critics of the president living abroad to make Russia look bad.
Thursday would have been Politkovskaya’s 49th birthday, and about 200 admirers gathered in a downtown square to honor her memory.
