Politkovskaya's family says murder has yet to be solved
MOSCOW. Oct 7 (Interfax) - The family of Novaya Gazeta investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya said her murder had yet to be solved as the paymaster was still not found.
"I am very disappointed with the way the investigation has been conducted and I am unaware of any progress made there," Politkovskaya's son Ilya told Interfax on Wednesday.
"The murder of my mama has not been solved; there is not even a faint resemblance of an inquiry into the paymaster," he said.
Ilya Politkovsky said he learned from the media that murder inquiry supervisor Petros Garibyan had stepped down. "The Investigative Committee answered to our inquiry that it was not compelled to disclose the composition of the new investigative team. The Investigative Committee obviously thinks that the case has been solved but this is not so," he said.
Nine years have passed since the murder of Anna Politkovskaya on October 7, 2006.
Novaya Gazeta said on Tuesday that it was not satisfied with the search for the murderer of Politkovskaya either. "In fact, we have been witnessing regress rather than progress," Novaya Gazeta chief editor Sergei Sokolov told Interfax.
"I would have been glad to make a mistake but I have an impression that the law enforcement chiefs have somehow lost interest in this case," Sokolov said.
"We have fears that the case may be suspended shortly because the identity of a person to be held liable has not been established," he said.
"Comprehensive measures are being taken to establish the identity of the paymaster of Anna Politkovskaya's murder and his case has been made a separate proceeding," Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin has told Interfax.
Novaya Gazeta journalist and public figure Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead on the staircase of her Moscow home on October 7, 2006.
On May 20, 2015, a jury passed a guilty verdict to five defendants in the Politkovskaya murder case: Lom-Ali Gaitukayev born in Chechnya, his nephews Rustam, Jabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov. They were found guilty of murder and illegal arms turnover. Rustam Makhmudov was also found guilty of abduction and extortion.
On June 9, the Moscow City Court gave lifetime sentences to Gaitukayev and Rustam Makhmudov, a 12-year sentence to Ibragim Makhmudov, a 14-year sentence to Jabrail Makhmudov (his prison term was cut by six months by the Russian Supreme Court) and a sentence of 20 years in a maximum security penitentiary to Sergei Khadzhikurbanov.
Detectives are establishing the identity of the Politkovskaya murder paymaster. His case has been made a separate proceeding.