By Miriam Elder in Moscow | The Independent, Thursday, 16 October 2008
A lawyer representing the family of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya has apparently been targeted by poisoners as the trial of three men accused of involvement in her murder was about to begin.
French police confirmed the discovery of mercury pellets in the car of Karinna Moskalenko, who suffered headaches, dizziness and nausea after getting into the vehicle.
Ms Moskalenko was taken to hospital for tests in Strasbourg on Tuesday, which prevented her from flying to Moscow for the Politkovskaya trial. The preliminary hearing opened almost exactly two years after the crusading reporter died in a hail of bullets in the entrance to her apartment block.
The three men, including a former police officer, are on trial in connection with the murder of Ms Politkovskaya, who made her name challenging Vladimir Putin’s regime. Friends and colleagues believe her killers may never be found.
Lawyers for the defendants and Ms Politkovskaya’s family have called for an open trial to provide transparency in a case charged with politics and cloaked in conspiracy. “It was made clear to us all that the hearing will likely take place behind closed doors, as the case contains secret materials,” said defence lawyer Murat Musayev.
Ms Moskalenko is a leading defender of the Kremlin’s critics, including the jailed former oil tycoon and ex-chief executive of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the chess-champion-turned opposition politician Garry Kasparov. She said that she believed the poisoning was a warning. “When we got to the car, we realised something was not normal. My husband is a chemist and the substance looked like mercury. I’m worried for my family,” she said.
Another lawyer for Mr Khodorkovsky, Robert Amsterdam, said the timing was suspicious. “This type of event gives us all pause to consider what it takes now in Russia to defend human rights. There are ongoing attacks on lawyers and journalists.”
Kremlin critics have often been the targets of poisoners. Ms Politkovskaya herself fell ill after drinking a cup of tea while on her way to cover the aftermath of the Beslan school siege in which more than 300 people died, while the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died in London from radiation poisoning. Scotland Yard wants to extradite his fellow ex-KGB operative, Andrei Lugovoi, to be tried for his murder. Another case of alleged mercury poisoning was reported two years ago, involving the wife of an ex-director of Yukos, Alexei Golubovich. Mr Amsterdam said: “What matters is not if it’s related to Yukos or Politkovskaya but that it’s another human rights defender that’s in this situation.”
Sergei Sokolov, the deputy editor of Ms Politkovskaya’s newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, said that Ms Moskalenko “takes part in a lot of prominent cases. It’s not necessarily directly linked to this case.” Ms Moskalenko helps Russians press claims against the government at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The trial judge reportedly refused to postpone yesterday’s preliminary hearing, which involved two ethnic Chechen brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, and Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former police officer. All stand accused of aiding the killer, who remains on the run. Investigators suspect him to be Rustam Makhmudov, although investigators d do not know who ordered the murder.
Ms Politkovskaya won countless enemies through her articles and books chronicling human rights abuses and the fall of democracy in modern Russia, particularly through her scrutiny of Moscow’s brutal wars in Chechnya.
She was killed on 7 October 2006 – the then President Vladimir Putin’s birthday. He denied any Kremlin link to the killing but failed for days to comment on the death, before dismissing it as “insignificant”. Last week, hundreds commemorated the second anniversary of Ms Politkovskaya’s death. “It’s sad we don’t know, two years after the murder, who did it, who ordered it,” Vladimir Milov, a former deputy energy minister turned Putin critic, said at the rally.
The military court is due to meet again on 17 November to decide if the trial will be open to the public and the media, and to assemble a jury.
Tags: calls for open trial, Karina Moskalenko, Kremlin, murdered journalist Ana Politkovskaya, poisoning, Vladimir Putin
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