Murder in Broad Daylight

in january, defense lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova were shot point-blank by a masked gunman on Prechistenka Street in central Moscow.

Markelov was widely known as a lawyer who took “dangerous” cases, including several tied to Chechnya. Most recently, he was representing the Kungayev family in their appeal of the early parole of former Army Colonel Yury Budanov. Budanov was convicted in the summer of 2003 of strangling the family’s 18-year-old daughter, Elza, during the second Chechen war. Budanov had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for the murder, but was paroled in early January, leading to protests across Chechnya. Markelov was shot on his way back from a conference where he had spoken about the Budanov case.

Markelov had represented Novaya Gazeta in a number of cases in recent years, working on the case of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and representing newspaper editor Mikhail Beketov, who was recently beaten into a coma for trying to protect a nature reserve in Khimki.

The Kungayev family, which now lives in Norway, told Radio Svoboda that Markelov had been receiving death threats. Human rights activists and lawyers said the murder was political and tied to Markelov’s professional activities. It was “either done in revenge or as a warning to other lawyers,” said lawyer Yury Shmidt. Kommersant said the murder could be tied to any of Markelov’s cases.

Baburova, 25, was a freelance contributor for Novaya Gazeta and wrote about neo-nazi and anarchist youth groups in Russia – her article about Russian fascist groups was published in Novaya Gazeta the day she was shot. She was interviewing Markelov en route from the conference to Kropotkinskaya metro, and apparently tried to grab the killer after he shot Markelov in the back of the head. She was herself mortally wounded before their assailant fled.

Novaya Gazeta has had five journalists murdered since 2000, and its deputy editor, Yury Shchekochikhin, died of a suspected poisoning in 2003 (see Russian Life, Jan/Feb 2007).

“The trend to physically intimidate journalists has intensified in 2009,” said the OSCE’s representative on media freedom, Miklos Haraszti, in a statement in late January. Among other attacks in December and January was the murder of Murmansk-based Shafik Amrakhov, an assault on Regnum agency correspondent Zhanna Akbasheva, arrests and beatings of various journalists at protests against increased auto tariffs in Vladivostok (see page 12), and fires in several regional newsrooms around the country. “Freedom of the press is just an empty promise in any country where reporters covering important issues are being killed, while their killers are never prosecuted,” Haraszti said.

Among possible suspects in the Markelov murder listed on Novaya Gazeta’s blog are: neo-Nazis (Markelov defended antifascist youths in court); Chechen authorities (Markelov represented families of kidnapped Chechens); supporters of Yury Budanov; and individuals involved in the beating of editor Mikhail Beketov. At press time, police had no leads, Moscow Police Chief Vladimir Pronin told RIA Novosti. This despite the fact that Markelov and Baburova were shot on a busy Moscow street at two in the afternoon. Investigators have only a blurry photo of the killer, taken by a camera installed not far from the site of the murders.

– maria antonova