Sergei Khadjikurbanov, a former Russian police officer sentenced to twenty years in prison for his role in the assassination of journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, was pardoned by Vladimir Putin for joining Russian forces in Ukraine, his lawyer said on Tuesday. the AFP. The death of the journalist, shot dead in Moscow on October 7, 2006, the day of the Russian president’s birthday, is one of the most resounding murders of the Putin era, at the helm of Russia since 2000 and who saw many of his detractors assassinated.
“A monstrous arbitrary injustice”
Alexei Mikhalchik, Sergei Khadjikourbanov’s lawyer, told AFP that his client had joined the Russian forces engaged in Ukraine in 2022, which earned him a presidential pardon. “He was offered a contract to participate. He did it and when the contract ended he was pardoned by decree of the president,” said the lawyer, saying that his client’s family urged him to do so. had informed. “It is a monstrous arbitrary injustice, a desecration of the memory of a person killed for his convictions and the fulfillment of his professional duty,” noted in a press release the family of Anna Politkovskaya and the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, her former employer .
The pardon granted by Vladimir Putin is in no way “proof of the murderer’s atonement and remorse”, they continue. Christophe Deloire, secretary general of the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF), criticized the Russian president’s “cynicism” on X (formerly Twitter). According to the lawyer, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov was supposed to serve his sentence until 2030, but the authorities offered him a contract because of his experience in a Russian special forces unit. Alexei Mikhalchik initially revealed the information to the Russian media Baza and RBK.
“Atone for his crimes”
Tens of thousands of Russian detainees have signed such contracts with paramilitary groups like the Wagner Group. These men often served in the most dangerous sectors of the front and, by the admission of Wagner’s late boss, Yevgeni Prigozhin, were used as cannon fodder. But the survivors regained their freedom. This policy is publicly endorsed by the Kremlin. “Those convicted, including for serious crimes, atone for their crime with blood on the battlefield,” Dmitri Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, declared on Friday.
Sergei Khadzhikurbanov is still serving on the Ukrainian front, according to his council. “In 2023, he signed a new contract as a volunteer and is now fighting in command functions,” continued the lawyer, who said he was “convinced of the innocence” of his client in the Politkovskaya affair. World-renowned investigative journalist, specialist in crimes committed by the authorities in Chechnya and critic of Vladimir Putin, Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in the lobby of her building in Moscow.
The sponsors of the crime have never been identified, even if many opponents of the Kremlin and the regime it has established in Chechnya consider that Ramzan Kadyrov, the authoritarian leader of this region of the Caucasus, is the number suspect. 1. The person concerned has always denied it.
Serial murders
It took several trials, acquittals and then convictions for those carrying out the assassination to be convicted. Among them, Sergei Khadjikourbanov. The logistical organizer of the assassination, Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, died in prison in 2017. His nephew Rustam Makhmudov was found guilty of killing the journalist, and is serving a life sentence. Anna Politkovskaya, who worked for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, is one of the many figures critical of Vladimir Putin’s Russia to have been assassinated without these crimes ever being clarified.
Among the other victims, the opponent Boris Nemtsov, the journalist Paul Klebnikov, the human rights activist Natalia Estemirova and the lawyer Stanislav Markelov. The Kremlin’s number one critic, Alexeï Navalny, survived a poisoning in 2020 and is serving a long prison sentence, a sentence that the person concerned and the West describe as political. After its assault on Ukraine, Russia launched a vast campaign of repression of all voices, famous or anonymous, denouncing its responsibility in this conflict.