#29 - JRL 2007-251 - JRL Home
Too Early To Say Politkovskaya Murder Solved - Official
MOSCOW. Dec 5 (Interfax) - Several people have been arrested on suspicion of
involvement in murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 and a 2007 train
bombing but it is too early to say the two crimes have been solved, Dmitry Dovgy,
head of the Chief Investigation Department of the Russian Prosecution Service
Investigation Committee a senior criminal investigator said in an interview to
be published in Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Thursday.
"It is premature to speak of the complete solution of (Politkovskaya's
murder). The entire chain from those who commissioned it to those who executed
it has not been found out yet," Dovgy told the daily.
Some people have been arrested and charged in the course of the investigation
of this crime, he said.
"I will not disclose the details of the investigation. But I am sure that we
are on the right track and have moved quite a way ahead in investigating this
case," Dovgy said.
Asked whether the investigators knew the names of those who commissioned and
executed the murder, Dovgy said he had "No comment for the time being."
As for the bombing that derailed a Moscow-St. Petersburg train last August,
"one cannot speak of complete solution either," Dovgy said.
The entire chain of perpetrators of this crime had not been found out either,
he said.
Brothers Maksharip and Amirkhan Khidriyev had been arrested and charged with
terrorism in connection with the attack, Dovgy said.
"The investigators have enough evidence, but we are continuing our
investigation. And, whereas initially we were working on several theories behind
the bombing of the train, today they have gone down in number," he said.
Dovgy was asked to comment on statements by some officials that the two
crimes have been solved.
"The Investigation Committee has never made any such statements, and I
believe that premature statements of this kind are simply harmful, especially
when they are widely propagated by the media," Dovgy said.
"Law courts alone have the right to establish whether the accused are guilty.
And they may see this as pressure from the prosecution service and the press,"
he said.
|