As Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports:

The prosecution had sought to portray the couple as radical nationalists bent on eliminating Markelov, a prominent defender of minority rights. But Tikhonov and Khasis protested their innocence throughout the trial, even as they acknowledged their nationalist beliefs.

Markelov was shot in broad daylight in January 2009, just minutes after leaving a press conference in central Moscow. Baburova, who had been interviewing Markelov for the opposition newspaper “Novaya gazeta,” was shot dead as she attempted to protect Markelov.

Markelov’s death was mourned as one in a series of deaths of Russian rights defenders, including journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed in October 2006; and activist Natalya Estemirova, a member of the Russian rights group Memorial, who was kidnapped and shot dead in Chechnya in July 2009.

Rights watchers hailed the verdict as a rare instance of courtroom justice in a country where many high-profile murders go unresolved.

There was, however, still cause for concern that the judicial process was not entirely lawful:

A former juror who resigned from the case told the “Moskovsky komsomolets” newspaper the jury had been pressured to convict Tikhonov and Khasis.

A key witness for the prosecution also attempted to retract his testimony, saying he had been forced to deliver it under duress.

Maryana Torocheshnikova, who covered the trial for RFE/RL’s Russian Service, said the jury was forced to recess twice on April 28, “the first time to clarify some questions and the second time to revise the verdict, after the judge…said there had been violations in the formation of the verdict.”

Tikhonov and Khasis’s defense say they plan to appeal because the verdict was “unlawful.”

Oleg Orlov, head of the human rights foundation Memorial, has issued a statement in response to the verdict:

While the case went on, human rights activists stayed silent – we followed the process attentively.

It seems that our many years of experience would allow us to distinguish made-to-order cases fabricated by the intelligence and security services from cases that these same services and structures, with all their telltale marks, investigate in good faith.

In assessing the evidence presented by investigators, we attempted to put ourselves in the jury’s shoes, doubting everything that could bring about doubt. Now we can speak without fear that this would be perceived as pressure on the jury.

We will speak more about the details of the process at a later time. However, we can say today that we agree with the jury’s verdict – those were the real killers at the defendants’ bench, and not some people arbitrarily accused.

We will only make two remarks, as we and our colleagues were mentioned during the trial.

The defendants and their lawyers referred numerous times to the testimony of our colleague Natalya Estemirova, who was murdered in the summer of 2009. They mentioned the record of witness questioning that was done in the first days after Markelov and Baburova were murdered, in which Estemirova lays out possible “Chechen” versions of the case.

Many of us spoke about a “Chechen” version during our questioning – but only among a long series of other versions. The defendants and their lawyers purposely referred to the murdered Natasha and not to living witnesses who could have been summoned to court today and clarify which of the original majority of versions was the most relevant account.

At the same time, in testifying about Stanislav Markelov’s Chechen cases, witnesses spoke most of all not about Chechens but about Russian soldiers and members of Russia’s federal security structures who have been convicted of crimes against civilians in Chechnya. To this day, these convicts still enjoy the sympathy of circles connected to the defendants (it was the lawyer Vasiliev who said that the girl murdered by Budanov – Markelov represented the interests of her parents in court – was supposedly a sniper!). In regards to the contradictions with the lawyer and Kadyrov’s administration, which the defendants mentioned, the situation was not strained in January 2009 – Markelov worked in cooperation with Kadyrov’s human rights ombudsman on the Budanov case.

Finally, the defendants and their lawyers pointed to the supposedly entirely probable connection between the murders of Stanislav Markelov, Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova, having worked together on the very same Chechen cases. As far as we know, the connection with their mutual case – the case of federal security services officer Sergei Lapin, the so-called Cadet – was not examined in a single one of these three murder cases. In our opinion, the participation of Chechen Republic security structures is entirely probable in Natasha Estemirova’s murder case, but is not at all connected either to Politkovskaya’s murder or with the “federals” in the Cadet case.

Finally, as we know for sure, investigators considered the Chechen version of Stanislav Markelov’s murder in detail, not at all as a formality; they did not limit themselves to sending inquiries and orders to Grozny: officials from the Main Investigative Committee were sent to Chechnya in the middle of 2009.

Yevgenia Khasis calls herself a “human rights advocate,” using a term that has not been very popular in recent years. But what meaning is given to this concept by nationalists, whose basic ideology is the denial of all people’s inherent equal rights and freedoms (most of all the right to freedom of movement and choice of place of residence)? Let alone by radical nationalists or Nazis (which the defendants are, without question), who confer themselves with the right to violence and murder?

Indeed, Yevgeniya Khasis lent charitable and informational, but not legal (she does not have the proper skills or education for that) support to the convict – but most of all convicted not at all for his beliefs, but for violent crimes committed on the basis of a division of people between “superior” and “inferior.”

It seems that the nationalists are trying to foist their own concepts of truth and rights onto society, not hesitating to defend themselves in court with everything up to falsifying testimony – there was the inept attempt to organize an alibi for Yevgeniya Khasis, which fell apart in the eyes of the public! The defendants’ lawyers tried ineptly throughout the entire case to hide their own positive attitude towards terrorism and their readiness to defend terrorists: indeed, an important goal of the murders of both migrants and public activists like Markelov is precisely the desire to sow fear within society – an openly terroristic intention.

One would like to believe that today’s verdict will serve as a lesson for all those who would like to represent the interests of the “white race.”

Orlov’s original statement in Russian can be found here. Translation by theotherrussia.org.

Following months of legal battles, a Russian court declared in September that a decision by Roskomnadzor (Russia’s federal media supervision agency) to issue an official warning against the newspaper for “propagandizing nationalistic views” was valid. Since a publication can be shut down after two such warnings, Novaya Gazeta editors say that the court’s decision spells the beginning of the possible end of the newspaper.

In a post on Novaya Gazeta’s blog on Sunday evening, Deputy Chief Editor Sergei Sokolov explained the court case:

It’s entirely possible that next year Novaya Gazeta won’t be found in either kiosks or your mailbox. We may be shut down…

What alarmed the federal officials? The article “Gang, agency, party. Who are the ‘legal nationalists'” – which is research dedicated to ultra-right organizations that openly preach nationalistic views. We quoted propagandistic texts from the web site of Russian Mind, we took photographs from a Nazi website in which people calling themselves legal politicians were covered in symbols that look fascist to the point of confusion. (Notarized copies of these materials were presented to the court.)

Why did we do this? Because Novaya Gazeta has taken a principally antifascist position for the course of many years: it demands that the authorities investigate the activities of nationalist-extremists, it explains to people what the activists from numerous “patriotic” movements that gallivant around the center of Moscow in Russian Marches actually are, it reports statistics on the victims of nationalists. (Several kilograms of these texts were presented to the court.)

In January 2009, fascists murdered our journalist Anastasia Baburova and a friend of our editorial office, lawyer Stanislav Markelov – they were shot in the back of the head in the center of Moscow. It was a public punishment for antifascists. (The court was aware of these circumstances.)

We carried out our own investigation and explained: the people now charged with murder associated with members of Russian Mind and had a certain attitude towards it. Meanwhile, Russian Mind advertises itself as a non-extremist and non-fascist organization. In order for readers and law enforcement agencies to get the proper impression of these citizens, we quoted THEIR program documents and showed THEIR photographs with Nazi symbols. (The court was aware of this.)

We expected that after this publication, Roskomnadzor would deal with the fact that the website of Russian Mind exists, and that prosecutors would begin looking into further criminal charges.

Roskomnadzor did deal with it – only not with the ultra-right, but with Novaya Gazeta.

The offending article can be read in Russian by clicking here.

Translation by theotherrussia.org.

The surge in Russian nationalism has been endorsed in no small part by a variety of government representatives. At the same time, Russian rights activists and oppositionists have been repeatedly targeted by ultranationalist groups, and accuse the government for turning a blind eye. The editorial team at Gazeta.ru points out that with Chuvashov’s murder, they’re going to have to either start make some changes or start watching their backs.

Brown Blackmail
April 12, 2010
Gazeta.ru

Attempts by the Russian authorities to use nationalist organizations to further their own goals, in particular the battle against the democratic opposition that exists outside of the political system, are dangerous to the authorities themselves.

Investigators immediately linked the shooting of Moscow City Court Judge Eduard Chuvashov with his professional activities, naming revenge by nationalists as one possible motive.

Chuvashov presided over the scandalous cases of Artur Ryno’s and the White Wolves nationalist group’s skinhead bands, whose followers had repeatedly and publicly – on the internet – threatened him with physical violence.

One very telling commentary on the murder was given by Dmitri Demushkin, leader of the Slavic Union nationalist organization (By the way, Union members participated in the “Youth Against Terror” rally organized by the pro-Kremlin organizations Young Russia and Young Guard on Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square on March 31). Demushkin said that “A new generation is coming to replace the large organizations of nationalists, a generation of disparate groups of autonomous youths, aimed at committing grave and very serious crimes.” Lamenting the government’s ban of the Slavic Union, he pointed out a direct threat to the government: now, “the wave of attacks from illegal nationalist groups will intensify… Many young people who don’t see any alternatives will start taking more aggressive action.”

For a long time, the Russian government has not seen nationalists as a threat to itself or to order in the country. Crimes against migrants from Asian or African countries are almost always treated by the courts as common hooliganism, not as a manifestation of interracial strife.

There are still a significant number of people in the Russian political elite and law enforcement agencies today who sympathize with Russian nationalists, and some of the slogans of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration were completely in tune with various bureaucrats’ proclamations.

Moreover, soon after the colored revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, the authorities even allowed the nationalists to hold a “Russian March” in Moscow on November 4 – National Unity Day.

In the past few years, the government has finally begun to gradually understand the danger that nationalist organizations pose. At the very least, the Russian Marches have invariably been banned over the past few years [although not in 2009 – Ed.]; judges began more commonly punishing skinheads for crimes committed on a nationalistic basis, without hiding behind the formulation of “common hooliganism.” And the cases for Ryno and Skachevsky’s band (Judge Chuvashov announced the sentence on the second case against this group on April 8, 2010) and the White Wolves had become the biggest antinationalistic judicial cases in the country’s modern history.

Nationalists in Russia have also previously been charged with murdering their opponents from among the “native” (in their assessment) population. In particular, Petersburg skinheads are accused of murdering the famous Petersburg ethnographer and human rights advocate Nikolai Girenko on June 19, 2004, in a trial that has already been going on for more than a year. Nationalists are charged with the 2009 murder of lawyer Stanislav Markelov. Judge Eduard Chuvashov, who was physically threatened numerous times by the White Wolves, was clearly their enemy as well. But unlike Girenko and Markelov, Chuvashov is a representative of the state.

Ultranationalists have always and everywhere been a subversive force that is prepared to commit crime – including against government representatives, even if the government has tried to play along with them.

And for sure, if radical nationalists came into power, it would lead to a great amount of blood – remembering the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany is enough.

The Russian authorities need to be aware of the fact that there are no “tame nationalists.” You can create the moderate nationalist block Rodina in the political-technical test tubes, so that you can then slam the door on the first threat of its return to real, serious political power. But you cannot, with impunity, use grassroots nationalist organizations as instruments of the state. And powerful nationalistic rhetoric from government representatives is extraordinarily dangerous as well, since it feeds the radical xenophobic mindset of some young people.

The government needs to understand that the “browns” [umbrella term for fascists/ultranationalists/neo-Nazis – Ed.] cannot just be fellow travelers in the battle against the liberal opposition; they will inevitably enter into conflict with state representatives, especially when they sense their own impunity. And that’s the main lesson that it’s time the government learned from the notorious murder cases involving representatives of nationalist organizations.

City authorities originally denied official sanction for the march, but later agreed to a second appeal by activists.

A broad array of social, political, and human rights organizations were represented at the march, which proceeded through the middle of the city north of the Kremlin. Notable participants included For Human Rights Executive Director Lev Ponomarev, Memorial human rights center Director Oleg Orlov, Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin, and Solidarity director Denis Bilunov.

Per agreement, participants in the march carried no political flags or symbols, although it was not immediately clear whether this agreement was made among the participants themselves or on the order of city authorities.

Police officers patrolling the event required activists to march in groups of 50, with separate police escorts assigned to each group. Several dozen protesters did attempt to break through the area cordoned off by security forces, lighting smoke bombs and unfurling banners. Approximately 24 protesters were beaten and detained by police as a result.

The march was intended to conclude with a rally at the end of the designated route, but was delayed due to police requiring all 600 participants to file through only two metal detectors.

After forty minutes of delay, a crowd of protesters broke through the police barrier in an attempt to begin the rally, resulting in police detaining 18 participants and beating dozens more.

Another 50 participants were detained throughout the course of the event, with activists alleging that police were especially harsh in their treatment of younger members of the crowd.

In addition to the memorial march, Moscow residents brought flowers and candles to the place where Markelov and Baburova were murdered throughout the day on Tuesday.

Stanislav Markelov was shot in the head in central Moscow on January 19, 2009. He died at the scene. Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova, who had been walking with Markelov, was also shot, and died the same day in the hospital.

Markelov was known for his work defending victims of human rights abuses in Chechnya and violence from ultranationalist and neo-Nazi organizations. Two suspects in the murders, alleged neo-Nazis Nikita Tikhonov and Yevgeniya Khasis, were arrested in November and have pleaded guilty to the crimes.

According to rally organizer Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a prominent human rights advocate whose arrest at a New Year’s Eve demonstration in Moscow has drawn international scorn, the city authorities had no basis on which to prohibit the rally.

“We are categorically outraged at this refusal,” Alexeyeva said. She described a sanctioned rally held in January 2009 directly after the murders as having been “quiet and peaceful,” giving authorities no reason to suspect that this year’s rally would be any different.

“But our authorities very much love to prohibit everything; they need to, so that the citizens sit at home, and if they do go outside, then only these ‘Nashi’ will be there with their cries of ‘Hooray Putin!'” Alexeyeva said, referring to the pro-Kremlin youth organization Nashi.

The rights advocate added that the application for the January 19 rally had been filed on December 24, giving authorities plenty of notice.

Stanislav Markelov was shot in the head in central Moscow on January 19, 2009. He died at the scene. Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova, who had been walking with Markelov, was also shot, and died the same day in the hospital.

Markelov was known for his work defending victims of human rights abuses in Chechnya and violence from ultranationalist and neo-Nazi organizations. Two suspects in the murder, alleged neo-Nazis Nikita Tikhonov and Yevgeniya Khasis, were arrested in November and have plead guilty to the crime.

Ivan Khutorskoy, 26, was found by neighbors in the entryway to his building on Khabarovskaya ulitsa on the evening of November 16.

Law enforcement agencies say they are investigating several possible motives for the killing, including connections to the victim’s anti-fascist activism.

According to the monitoring group Institute of Collective Action, Khutorskoy had been assaulted three times prior to his murder. In 2005 his head was slashed with a razor, he received multiple wounds around the neck from a screwdriver and was beaten with a baseball bat during a second incident, and in 2009 he was stabbed with a knife in the stomach during a street fight.

According to the website, Khutorskoy had recently been working as security for concerts put on by anti-fascist groups. Colleague Aleksei Grigoryev said in an interview on Svoboda radio that Khutorskoy had also frequently worked as security during the press conferences of the prominent human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who was murdered last January.

“In general, he was a visible figure for opponents; apparently this is why the fascists tried so persistently to liquidate him,” Grigoryev said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, another colleague told Reuters that Khutorskoy’s murder was likely political. “Ivan [Khutorskoy] knew Markelov. His murder was either revenge, or a challenge to the authorities following the arrests.”

A rise in nationalist sentiments in Russia has contributed to growing clashes between anti-fascist activists, ultranationalist neo-Nazi groups, and authorities in recent years. A coalition of ultranationalist groups distributed instructions on how to acquire firearms at a large rally held during Russia’s November 4 Unity Day celebrations, while another group held a concert featuring neo-Nazi performers.

The rise in fascist and ultranationalist extremism has additionally resulted in increased violence against dark-skinned migrant workers, as well as a number of recent murders. Stanislav Markelov, a high-profile lawyer known for his defense of anti-fascists and victims of human rights abuses, was shot dead in January in central Moscow. One suspect, a member of neo-Nazi organizations, was detained in early November and has admitted to the killing. In October 2008, anti-fascist leader Fyodor Filatov was killed after a fight between anti-fascists and ultranationalists in central Moscow in which four people were injured.

In his brief to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, Bortnikov said that suspects Yevgeniya Khasis and Nikita Tikhonov were detained as a result of police infiltration of a “radical organization.” Khasis then admitted to the murder of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova.

Khasis, born 1985, is now being guarded in detention ahead of trial. She and Tikhonov, born 1980, are allegedly former members of the radical nationalist organization Russian National Unity. Police say they have confiscated a large quantity of weapons and that the suspects had planned to commit yet another “resonant” murder.

Reports began appearing in the Russian media several weeks prior to the FSB statement that murder suspects had possibly been detained. The media had named the motive for the crime as retaliation on the part of nationalists for Markelov’s involvement in the murder case of anti-fascist Aleksandr Ryukhin.

Ryukhin, who was 19 at the time of his killing, was knifed down by a group of six nationalists in 2006. Only three of the six were sentenced, and Markelov had repeatedly named Tikhonov as another possible suspect. Investigators said Tikhonov had been a member of the notorious ultranationalist organization United Brigade-88 and was a close friend to Khasis. Khasis herself had allegedly been a member of various nationalist groups since she was 16.

According to Aleksandr Belov, leader of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, Tikhonov had worked as a speech writer for Boris Gryzlov. Gryzlov at the time had been chief of Russian police and Russia’s Interior Minister, and is currently Speaker of the State Duma and a leader of Putin’s United Russia party. Belov says that Tikhonov had “disappeared somewhere” in 2006.

Investigators had originally suspected Markelov’s murder to be motivated his involvement in the case of a girl killed by a Russian colonel in Chechnya.

An anonymous source told Kasparov.ru that Tikhonov and Khasis were likely arrested long prior to the officially cited dates of November 3 and 4, and that the media deliberately waited until after yesterday’s massive nationalist demonstrations to release the information.

Stanislav Markelov was shot in the head with a pistol in central Moscow on January 19 of this year. He died at the scene. Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova, who was walking with Markelov, was also shot, and died the same day in the hospital.

Novaya Gazeta Editor-in-Chief Sergei Sokolov was careful in his reaction to the FSB Director’s announcement. “I would beware of talking about a full exposure of this crime. If you bring to mind other different notorious murders – frequently after the announcement of their exposures, they don’t hold up in practice.”

There are few like him left

Olga Malysh

“Take care of yourself, ok?” Masha, a young nazbol hugged me, looking in my eyes.  That day some of the people who gathered at Prechistenka, the place where Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova died, said similar words to each other.  This pointless phrase had a new meaning in the context of the three deaths that happened on “black” Monday, the previous day.  It finally became clear that anyone with any visibility in the civil society [community] could be killed: an attorney, a journalist, an activist.  And one can only guess at who will be next.

It becomes especially frightening if one looks at the ranks of that same “civil society” – a few thousand people in all, who often know each other.

Guessing at why Stanislav Markelov was killed is pointless and fruitless.  He was involved in a multitude of high-profile cases.  He could have had enemies from practically every one of them.  Stanislav was a lawyer for the Kungayeva family, which means he was connected with the scandalous case of [Yury] Budanov.  In his time, Markelov represented the interests of the Chechen family in the case of Sergei Lapin (radio call sign “Cadet”), who was accused of torturing Grozny resident Zelimkhan Murdalov.  He was the attorney for Anna Politkovskaya, the victims in Blagoveshchensk (Rus), and “Nord-Ost”.  He fought for the right of amnesty for a Chechen resident, Musikhanov, who refused to serve under [Chechen President Ramzan] Kadyrov.  One can’t list everything.

Recently, Markelov had spoken as a lawyer for Mikhail Beketov, the editor-in-chief of the Khimkinskaya Pravda newspaper who was all but killed in the fall of last year.  Incidentally, they were friends.  The deceased lawyer wasn’t afraid of directly implicating the Khimki city administration in the attack on the journalist.  They say Stanislav was even conducting his own investigation.

Another critical detail – Markelov defended many activists in the Antifa [anti-fascist] movement.   Specifically, he took part in the murder cases of 19-year-old Alexander Ryukhin, teenager and skateboard enthusiast Stas Korepanov, and ecologist and anti-fascist Ilya Borodaenko by right wing [nationalist] radicals.  He was the attorney for the family of anti-fascist Alexei Krylov, and represented Alexei Olesinov, the Moscow leader of Antifa accused of hooliganism, in court.

This gives the anti-fascists and human rights activists grounds to assume that neo-nazis were involved in Markelov’s murder.  Stanislav himself said sometime that his name was on the list of “enemies” on certain right-wing radical websites.  In personal discussions, he called himself an adherent of the Antifa movement.  And the anti-fascists assert that journalist Anastasia Baburova was one of them as well.  “The perpetration of a crime, when two active anti-fascists are murdered in central Moscow in broad daylight leaves no doubt.  The murderers are neo-nazis!” the antifa write in their LiveJournal community.

Novaya Gazeta columnist Yulia Latynina leans to the theory that right wing radicals, connected with Budanov, killed Markelov.  “This is a case where everything is immediately clear,” she told me, reminding me that “fascists” had already attacked Stanislav for his part in the case against the former colonel.  “Budanov’s heroism consisted in that he raped a young Chechen girl, and the heroism of Markelov and Baburova’s killer in that he shot at defenseless people in the back of the head,” Yulia added.

Evidently, the law enforcement agencies are considering this as one of the main theories.  The leader of the [ultra-nationalist] Slavonic Union, Dmitri Demushkin, has already been called in for questioning to the Investigative committee.  He asserts that he will not likely be able to share any useful information with investigations.  Although that being said, he doesn’t hide that he always supported Budanov.  “Several years ago, I carried a poster with ‘Freedom to colonel Budanov’ to a May 9th [demonstration].  This has backfired for me,” he laments.

Demushkin thinks that someone among Budanov’s admirers organized the murder.  “If this was nationalists, then they were patriotically inclined.  People like colonel Kvachkov‘s defenders,” he says.  The leader of the Slavonic Union explains his certainty by the fact that the murder was too professional and as result uncharacteristic of skinheads.  “A hatred of their enemies is nurtured into skinheads, these people attack, inflict 30-40 knife wounds.  This isn’t the case when they keep guard for days, and then kill in cold blood and calmly ride away on the metro,” he says.

Demushkin doesn’t exclude the possibility that the killer didn’t shoot at Anastasia Baburova by chance, but that he knew the journalist by sight as an active member of Antifa.  Possibly, this sealed her fate.  “In certain circles, Anastasia was disliked,” Demushkin explains, “she was part of many actions, including forceful ones.”

Perhaps Budanov’s name is most often raised in relation to the attorney’s murder.  Many people with completely different political views and convictions are inclined to connect Markelov’s involvement in the former colonel’s case with his death on Prechistenka.  And there are many reasons for this.  First of all, Markelov himself on numerous occasions expressed fear that the former colonel’s not-quite sane fanatics, who to this day continue to threaten the Kungayev family, would become active on Budanov’s release on parole.  Secondly, at the press-conference, about an hour before the murder, the attorney announced that he had appealed the actions of the Dimitrovgrask city court judge, who didn’t accept his appeal of Budanov’s parole and released him.

Thirdly, immediately after what happened, the young Chechen Elza Kungayeva’s father told journalists that Markelov had been threatened with violence if he didn’t step down from the process and didn’t stop working in the family’s defense.  The human rights ombudsman in Chechnya, Nurdi Nukhazhiyev insisted on this version as well.  “With this execution, former colonel Budanov’s adherents marked the release of their idol,” he said in an interview with Kommersant.

At the same time, opponents of the “Budanov version” among journalists and bloggers are calling it overly evident, and hence unlikely.  As always happens in such cases, the version about the involvement of the secret services in the murder of a famous attorney also lingers in the air, with [the secret services] working out a cunning multi-step combination.  But it also has its right to exist.  In part, the statement by the For Human Rights movement says, that what happened could be a provocation of “those forces, who want to scare the society, and justify the introduction of new, strict police powers.”

The version about a raging fascist underground makes many people uneasy: indeed, official “anti-fascist human rights activists” like Alexander Brod and Nikolai Svanidze reacted to it a little too quickly.  In tough times of crisis and instability, they will most certainly call on everyone to rally against the “fascist plague,” forgetting about their daily bread for a while.  If such rhetoric continues to be actively sown in the future, the version about the secret services won’t seem quite so conspiratorial.

All the more so since many have rushed to say the murder was meant to set an example.  Indeed, it happened in the city center, just a kilometer from the Kremlin, in a fairly lively place.  This gives reason enough for former FSB officer and political prisoner Mikhail Trepashkin to say that the murder was done by a professional.  In his opinion, a specially trained person shot at Markelov, not an amateur.  “I don’t exclude that this wasn’t his first time shooting [a gun],” Trepashkin says.  The former FSB investigator also adds that the law enforcement agencies should have no problems in solving the crime, because “there are a mass of trails.”  If only the desire was there.

In addition, Trepashkin says the fact that the crime happened in the center doesn’t necessarily indicate that it was “meant to set an example.”  It is possible that the killer preferred not to spy on his victim near his home, as often happens, since the neighbors may have noticed a strange person and could  identify him later.

As for the weapon that fired the shot, according to the investigation’s latest data, it was a Makarov pistol.  It is not so simple to get one.  As is known, it is banned from free sale in our country.  The type of weapon in question is only available to certain agencies, which according to Trepashkin’s statement then trade on black market.  The highest military ranks are directly involved in this business, and as result the [black market] “stall” is still thriving.  As the former FSB employee notes, weapons were supplied from state munitions depots into Chechnya in precisely this manner in 1995.  “That is how weapons get in the hands of killers,” Trepashkin sums up.

How the killer got the pistol, is of course, important for those investigating what happened, but secondary to understanding why it happened.  Since they could have beaten the renowned attorney to death, like Yury Chervochkin and nazbol Anton Stradymov.  Or they could have poisoned him, like Yury Shchekochikhin and Alexander Litvinenko.

“They’ll kill him.  There are few like him left,” one of my friends said around a month ago, after he heard about Markelov on television.  I didn’t agree then.  I couldn’t have imagined that something could happen to a cheerful and joyful person like Stanislav.  So many dangerous cases behind him, and then suddenly he’s killed.

It happened.

Markelov differed from many of his colleagues in that he didn’t take political cases for the hell of it, for the publicity.  If he defended someone, then it was in earnest, with an intent to win.  And it’s hard just to call him a lawyer.  Human rights defender is more fitting.  And he did everything with a smile, jokingly.  In the same way, he never paid any mind to the threats against him.

On New Year’s, Stanislav sent me a congratulations.  I didn’t understand right away who it was from.  I didn’t recognize the phone number… And now I don’t believe in omens anymore.

How many more deaths like this are still to come?  And how many more people must die for our country’s people to wake up?

translation by theotherrussia.org

A prominent Russian rights lawyer who exposed abuses in Chechnya and spoke out against neo-nazis was gunned down in central Moscow Monday, along with a young reporter who later died in the hospital.

Stanislav Markelov (left), who most recently protested against the early release of a Russian officer serving time for killing a young woman in Chechnya, was shot at close range by a masked gunman, the RIA Novosti news agency reports, citing law enforcement officials. The shooting happened at around 2:45 PM, in broad daylight near the Kropotkinskaya metro station in the Moscow city center.

Anastasia Baburova, 25, a student at the Moscow State University who wrote for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was also shot in the head, and died without regaining consciousness, according the the Gazeta.ru online newspaper.

A murder investigation has been launched, and authorities are considering whether the murder was connected with Markelov’s professional activities. Prosecutor General Yury Chaika was personally taking hold of the investigation, according to media reports.

Markelov, 34, was returning from a press-conference to bring attention to the early release of Yury Budanov, a former colonel in the Russia army convicted of strangling a young Chechen woman, Elza Kungayeva (also known as Kheda Kungayeva). The former officer was sentenced to 10 years in 2003, but was released on parole 15 months early on January 15th. Markelov represented Kungayeva’s family, and had appealed the decision to parole Budanov. Speaking at the press-conference, he had pledged to take the case to an international court if the Russian court system failed to accept his appeal.

Budanov was one of the only high-level officers prosecuted for atrocities in Russia’s the two wars in Chechnya, and the decision to parole Budanov had sparked protest around the Caucasus mountain republic. Nurdi Nukhazhiyev, the human rights commissioner in Chechnya, called Budanov’s release “completely bald-faced disrespect for the opinions of many thousands of people.”

Anastasia Baburova (right) had been covering Budanov’s case for Novaya Gazeta, a prominent independent newspaper that once employed slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

“The trail for the investigation should be evident,” said Lev Ponomarev, director of the For Human Rights movement. “But [Markelov] was also one of the keenest lawyers in Russia. He defended the victims in the murder cases of anti-fascist activists in Moscow. Markelov was the best known lawyer in Russia who spoke out against nazis. There were death threats on nazi [web] sites, that is absolutely certain.”

According to Elza Kungayeva’s father, Visa Kungayev, Markelov had been receiving death threats via phone calls and text messages for over a year. Kungayev told the Sobkor®ru news agency that he had feared for Markelov’s life, and had advised him to quit the case.

Markelov had been a staunch defender of human rights activists in Russia, and had worked to help journalist Anna Politkovskaya. More recently, he had represented the interests of journalist Mikhail Beketov, who criticized officials in the Moscow suburb where he lived, and was brutally beaten in November 2008.

On January 20th at 12:00 PM, human rights activist and sympathizers will bring flowers to the place where Markelov and Baburova were killed. (ul. Prechistenka house 1, metro Kropotkinskaya, Moscow).