Article about Budanov was one of last works of perished journalist Baburova

Anastasiya Baburova, an off-the-staff employee of the "Novaya Gazeta", who was wounded on January 19 in the centre of Moscow, during Markelov's murder and later died in hospital, published a week ago an article about former colonel Yuri Budanov in the edition named "Personal Correspondent".

"It was her first new item, just a usual article, simply informational one. The article was operative, of good quality; we published it in our website and agreed that she would follow the topic and prepare other articles thereon," said Sergey Taranov, chief editor of the edition.

According to Mr Taranov, they were not acquainted personally; they communicated only by e-mail and telephone, therefore, Ms Baburova said nothing about her plans concerning the investigation. "We spoke more likely about the information support of this topic. If she could do a journalist's investigation, we'd have published it with pleasure," he said in his interview to the "Echo Moskvy" Radio.

Baburova's article named "Advocate Would Not Let Budanov out of Colony", published on January 13, ran that Stanislav Markelov, advocate of the Kungaev family, had sent a cassation complaint to the Ulyanovsk Regional Court against the decision on Budanov's conditional early relief. It also told about the advocate's letter to the Chairman of the Supreme Court of Russia Vyacheslav Lebedev with an appeal to take the trial under his personal control.

In her article the journalist quoted Markelov that "nobody ever released, conditionally and ahead of term, those accomplices of Gelaev, Baraev and other gangsters" whereas "their crimes and Budanov's offence belong to one and the same category - crimes against person."

Anastasiya Baburova wrote that, in the opinion of the lawyer, the prosecutor's office had moved inconsistent arguments in support of Yuri Budanov's petition - there was no data about the material compensation paid to the Kungaevs and about the apologies that he had made for the death of their daughter Elza.