09 Dec 10 | Index Index, minipost
The prosecutor general’s office has completed its investigation into the role that Oleksiy Pukach, a former intelligence office played in the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze and has announced is unable to lay any further charges despite evidence linking politicians to the murder. Pukach who at the time of the killing was the chief of the external surveillance department at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry will be put on trial in January. Gongadze was a Ukrainian journalist of Georgian descent killed in 2000. He was investigating high-level corruption allegedly involving senior officials, including president Leonid Kuchma. In March 2008, three former police officers were convicted for their role in Gongadze’s murder.
22 Nov 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
TV reporter Mazin Mardan, 18, has been shot dead in front of his parents in his house in Mosul, northern Iraq. The gunmen showed up at his home around 6pm and identified themselves to his father as intelligence officers. According to Reporters Without Borders, Mardan is the sixth Iraqi reporter killed in 2010. Not fewer than 230 journalists and media workers have been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion began in 2003, making Iraq one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists, CNN reported.
07 Oct 10 | Index Index, minipost
Detectives with the federal Investigative Committee say they are examining an expanded circle of suspects in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
The new suspects are said to be ethnic Chechens who wanted to get on the good side of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. There is no evidence directly linking Kadyrov to the case. The original defendants are still considered as suspects.
Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin told CPJ on 28 September that his agency was mistaken in “rushing” a previous case to trial.
30 Sep 10 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Top Russian investigators say they guarantee to pursue 19 cases of murdered journalists presented to them by a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The CPJ delegation led by CPJ Chairman Paul Steiger and board member Kati Marton met with the Chairman of the Investigative Committee Bastrykin and other investigators examining the cases.
CPJ representatives met with the Investigative Committee in September 2009 to discuss unsolved cases concerning Russian journalists. This year they returned for an update.
The investigator told CPJ delegation that Alkhazur Bashayev, alleged murderer of journalist Natalya Estemirova is alive. Authorities are trying to locate his whereabouts in Russia. Bastrykin also said he will find and arrest the suspected murderer of Anna Politkovskaya, who has fled in Europe.
