The exiled oligarch is clearly the real target of the arrests in Moscow, says philip jacobson |
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The Russian prosecutor general's announcement that 10 people are under arrest for their part in the contract killing of the celebrated investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya inevitably raises more questions than it answers.
Although the prosecutor, Yuri Chaika, coyly declined to name the foreign-based mastermind behind an alleged conspiracy to plant the blame for her murder on the Kremlin, his intention was clearly to implicate the exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky. In doing so, he echoed President Vladmir Putin's recent assertion that Politkovskaya's death was linked to a wider plot by 'enemies abroad' to destabilise his administration.
Mr Chaika's claim that former members of the state security services - the so-called 'siloviki' - and a Chechen crime boss were involved in setting up the killing comes as no surprise.
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| Politkovskaya’s editor has poured scorn on the official line about her death |
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Rogue elements of the former KGB were chief suspects in a number of still unsolved cases in which reporters working to uncover human rights abuses and links between corrupt officials and the Russian mafia have been assassinated. A Chechen hit team is also believed to have shot down an American journalist, Paul Klebnikov, in a Moscow street some two years ago: as editor of Forbes Russia he reportedly angered powerful figures by publishing the country's first rich list.
But Politkovskaya's editor at Novaya Gazeta pours scorn on the prosecutor's version of events behind her murder, accusing him of dutifully peddling the Kremlin line.
Dmitry Muratov told the New York Times his paper's investigation had found no evidence whatsoever to back up the allegations of an overseas connection. It had established that "all the resources of the special services (were) used in committing this crime".
The Novaya Gazeta inquiry is expected to be published before the first anniversary of its star correspondent's death in October. 
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 28, 2007
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The truth can be fatal in Putinland
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