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WORLD: I’ll lead probe into dissident murder. says Chechen president
Ed Harris16 Jul 2009
Chechnya's leader said today he will personally oversee the investigation into the murder of a human rights activist — even though the victim's colleagues accuse his security forces of being involved.
Natalia Estemirova, who worked for the human rights organisation Memorial in the Chechen capital Grozny, was found yesterday with two gunshot wounds to the head in woodland.
Ramzan Kadyrov, who was installed by the Kremlin, vowed to bring to justice the perpetrators of a murder he called “cynical” and “provocative”.
The murder of 50-year-old Ms Estemirova, a single mother who had recently been compiling evidence of house-burning by government militias, was condemned around the world.
The White House issued a statement saying the US was “deeply disturbed and saddened by the... brutal slaying”. It said: “Such a heinous crime sends a chilling signal to Russian civil society and the international community and illustrates the tragic deterioration of security and the rule of law in the North Caucasus over the last several months.”
A spokeswoman for Russian president Dmitri Medvedev said: “The president was outraged and gave all appropriate orders to the head of the investigations commission (Alexander) Bastrykin.”
Tatyana Lokshina, a Moscow researcher with the US-based Human Rights Watch, said: “She documented the most horrendous violations, mass executions. She has done things no one else dared to do.”
Ms Estemirova was bundled into a white vehicle and killed on the day of the release of a report she researched concluding there was enough evidence to demand that Russian officials, including prime minister Vladimir Putin, be called to account for crimes committed on their watch.
She had worked with two other human rights activists, lawyer Stanislav Markelov and reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who were believed to have been killed for their work. Mr Kadyrov was accused of being involved in the murder of Ms Politkovskaya in 2006, but he reportedly said: “I don't kill women.”
In 2007 Ms Estemirova was awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Award, given by the charity Reach All Women in War.
Alexander Cherkasov, of Memorial, said her investigations into a recent public execution held in Chechnya attracted unwanted attention from authorities. “This provoked — to put it gently — a nervous reaction from the Chechen authorities,” he said.
