Journalist who investigated Markelov's murder detained in Moscow

Today in Moscow militiamen have detained Dmitri Steshin, a correspondent of the politics division of the "Komsomolskaya Pravda", who investigated the murder of advocate Stanislav Markelov and journalists Anastasia Baburova. This was reported by a journalist's friend.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Stanislav Markelov was killed on January 19, when he was coming back from the press conference in the Independent Press Centre located in the Prechistensky Boulevard, which was dedicated to the early relief of former Colonel Yuri Budanov. Anastasia Baburova, a student of the journalism department of the Moscow State University and a journalist of the "Novaya Gazeta", who accompanied him, was wounded and later died in hospital.

According to the source, Dmitri Steshin is now kept in Petrovka 38, where he was brought for interrogation. The newspaper advocate, who also came to Petrovka (where GUVD - Moscow City Interior Department - is located), was not admitted to Dmitri's interrogation. According to some sources, the detention can have to do with the criminal case opened on Stanislav Markelov's and Anastasia Baburova's murders.

According to other sources, nobody detained the journalist; he voluntarily appeared for interrogation as a witness, he knows one of the suspects - Nikita Tikhonov. The "Gazeta.Ru" writes that the editorial board of the "Komsomolskaya Pravda" gave no official comments about the journalists.

Mr Steshin also worked for the magazine "Russian Image", which was founded in 2003 by Ilya Goryachev, leader of the nationalist organization under the same name, and Nikita Tikhonov, who is now arrested on the charge of Markelov's and Baburova's murders. "He's a quiet person and a loner; he shaves his head bold and happened to work in 'hot spots'. Recently, he was holding his own journalistic investigation of Markelov's case," one of the colleagues, who preferred to remain anonymous, said about Steshin.

Markelov's brother said that he knew nothing about possible detention of the journalist. The Investigatory Committee said that "they have no information of this sort."