MOSCOW, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Russians and Chechens alike
mourned journalist and critic of President Vladimir Putin Anna
Politkovskaya on Sunday, saying her murder was a political
killing to stifle the free press.
The United States said it was "shocked and profoundly
saddened" by the murder of the 48-year-old mother of two, who
won numerous prizes for her dogged pursuit of rights abuses by
Putin's government.
But there was still no word from the Kremlin, whose campaign
against separatist rebels in the violent southern province of
Chechnya had often been the target of Politkovskaya's
investigative reporting.
On Sunday, Putin chaired Russia's powerful Security Council
to "discuss various issues of internal and external policy", the
president's Web site www.kremlin.ru said, but made no mention of
Politkovskaya's murder.
She was shot dead on Saturday at her apartment block in
central Moscow in a killing prosecutors linked to her work.
Washington and the European Union urged Russia to conduct an
immediate and thorough investigation "to bring to justice all
those responsible for this heinous murder". Prosecutor General
Yuri Chaika has taken charge of the probe.
In the days before her death, Politkovskaya had been working
on a story about torture in Chechnya, which had been due to run
on Monday, along with photographs, her newspaper Novaya Gazeta
said. It said her death had disrupted the publication.
Independent radio Ekho Moskvy quoted Chechnya's pro-Moscow
Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov as saying: "Her stories weren't
always objective. But that was her personal point of view."
Politkovskaya had previously accused his semi-private guard
of being linked to kidnappings and torture, a charge he denied.
In Chechnya's capital Grozny, many remembered Politkovskaya,
saying the region had lost a truthful friend.
"It is through her that the world learnt about all the
lawlessness done here," said Mustafa Kurkiyev, an independent
journalist.
"She died because she displeased someone," Aindi Sagaipov, a
local administration worker in Aurgun outside Grozny, said. "For
someone, she must have been a pain in the neck."
MOURNING
In Moscow, hundreds of Muscovites thronged Pushkin Square,
lit candles and laid flowers at portraits of Politkovskaya.
"This is a political killing, there is no doubt about it,
and the authorities are mixed up in this," Valery Borshchev, a
member of Russia's liberal Yabloko party, told reporters.
"The Kremlin has killed freedom of speech," said a poster
fixed to a lamppost in the square. "You are responsible for
everything", read a poster featuring Putin's portrait.
In Russia's second city St Petersburg, hundreds braved
torrential rain to pay tribute.
"She was killed by a regime which made political terror part
of everyday life. State power is trying to intimidate society,"
Yuli Rybakov, head of the local branch of Memorial human rights
watchdog, told the rally.
The U.S. State Department said the intimidation and murder
of journalists -- 12 in Russia in the past six years, including
American citizen Paul Klebnikov on July 9, 2004 -- was "an
affront to free and independent media and to democratic values".
Putin had often been the target of Politkovskaya's
criticism. She accused him of stifling freedom and failing to
shake off his past as a KGB agent.
There are few independent voices in the Russian media, most
of it controlled by the state of business interests. Newspapers
such as Novaya Gazeta, popular with Russian liberals and human
rights activists, are rare, especially outside big cities.
Businessman Alexander Lebedev, who owns a large minority
stake in the paper, offered to pay a reward of 25 million
roubles ($933,500) for information about those who ordered and
carried out Politkovskaya's assassination.
(Additional reporting by Tatyana Ustinova and Dmitry
Solovyov in Moscow and Denis Pinchuk in St Petersburg)
