Doubts linger over US journalist’s murder
Then something unusual happened: The government said it was solved.
However, strong doubts remain about an investigation that has become a crucial test of President Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its justice system.
The prosecutors named Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev, a former Chechen separatist, saying he had killed the editor of Forbes magazine’s Russian edition as vengeance for a critical book the American wrote. However, a year on, other possible motives are still circulating.
“Without any information about the evidence, we’re all left speculating about the credibility of the prosecutor’s claim,” said Alex Lupis of the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists.
On June 16, when it announced the results of the investigation, the chief prosecutor’s office revealed nothing about the basis for its conclusion and declined to make further comment.
Klebnikov, a 41-year-old New Yorker of Russian descent, was shot as he left his office at around 10pm on July 9, 2004.
The killing cut short the career of a man who had chronicled the violent chaos of Russian capitalism after the Soviet collapse but who had high hopes for the country under Putin.
The Chechen angle surfaced because of Klebnikov’s book, Conversations with a Barbarian, based on his interviews with Nukhayev, which cast him in a negative light.
But Klebnikov’s brother, Michael, told The Associated Press he had understood “that Nukhayev was actually pleased with the book.”
