Hundreds in Moscow attended the funeral Jan. 23 of Anastasia Baburova, the 25-year-old journalist killed as she tried to defend human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov when a masked gunman shot him at point-blank range in broad daylight on a busy Moscow street this week. The two had just emerged from a press conference, in which Markelov had said he would appeal the early release of the killer of a Chechen girl, raped and murdered by a Russian army colonel during the war in Chechnya. (RFE/RL, Reuters, Jan. 23)
Hundreds protested in the Chechen capital following Markelov’s murder Jan. 19. Markelov fought the early release of Col. Yuri Budanov, who was freed last week with more than a year left in his 10-year murder sentence. Budanov admitted strangling Heda Kungayeva in 2000, saying he believed she was a rebel sniper. Budanov’s release sparked protests across Chechnya. (AP, Jan. 20)
See our last posts on Chechnya and the struggle in the Caucasus.
Ultra-right link seen in Moscow double-murder
A Russian Investigative Committee has charged two suspects in the murders of Markelov and Baburina Nikita Tikhonov, 29, and Yevgenia Khasis, 24, were charged with the double murder. Russian media reports say Tikhonov and Khasis were members of the banned radical movement Russian National Union. (RFE/RL, Nov. 6)