Journalist’s murder probe focuses on ex-police officers

INVESTIGATORS are focusing their inquiry into the killing of a Russian investigative reporter on former police officers linked to crimes against civilians in Chechnya, a newspaper reported yesterday.

Anna Politkovskaya, who had exposed killings, torture and other abuses against civilians in Chechnya, was gunned down in an apparent contract killing in her apartment building October 7. The gunmen have not been found and the murder set off a chorus of protest from foreign governments and international organisations.

Kommersant said investigators looking into her death travelled to the Siberian region of Khanty-Mansiisk, about 1,200 miles east of Moscow, last week after reports two police officers wanted for crimes in Chechnya had been seen there.

One of the officers, Sergei Lapin, had been implicated separately in 2001 in email threats against Politkovskaya.

Kommersant said an article Politkovskaya wrote in 2001 linked the killing of a Chechen man, Zelimkhan Murdalov, to Khanty-Mansiisk police officers who were serving in Chechnya and had detained him.