LAWFUEL – The Legal Newswire – Critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin gathered in a central Moscow square Sunday to honor a slain investigative journalist and to call on citizens to unite in her name to fight for greater democracy.
About 2,000 protesters gathered on a cold, drizzly day to hear opposition politicians and human-rights leaders praise the courage of Anna Politkovskaya, who was gunned down in her apartment building a year ago.
Politkovskaya was a fierce critic of Putin and his policies in war-torn Chechnya, where she believed the effort to suppress a separatist insurgency had led to massive human rights violations.
Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, announcing arrests in the case in August, said the journalist was killed by a Chechen-led contract killing gang working together with former and current officers of the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service.
