Colleagues of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya on Thursday sharply criticized the Russian authorities for failing to track down the mastermind of her killing 15 years ago.
Politkovskaya, who won international acclaim for her reporting on the human rights abuses in the Russian republic of Chechnya was shot dead in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006.
In 2014, a court in Moscow convicted the gunman and three other Chechens involved in the killing along with a former Moscow policeman who was their accomplice. Another former police officer involved in the killing made a deal with authorities that allowed him to qualify for a reduced sentence in exchange for cooperation with investigators.
Politkovskaya’s newspaper, Novaya Gazeta castigated the authorities for failing to determine who ordered the killing, noting that under the Russian statute of limitations, the mastermind wouldn't face punishment 15 years after the crime unless a court rules otherwise
Asked about the investigators' failure to find who ordered Politkovskaya's killing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such efforts often take a long time and emphasized that the mastermind must be tracked down and punished.
“It's a primary task to ensure the imminence of punishment for such crimes,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters when asked if the Kremlin would support waiving the statute of limitations to punish the mastermind.
