OSCE blames Russian law enforcers for incompetence in Politkovskaya's case

The problem of defending journalists in Russia needs addressing at the top level. This was stated on February 19 by Miklos Harasti, OSCE representative on freedom of mass media.

"The verdict passed on Politkovskaya's case is a culmination evidencing the inconsistency of law enforcement bodies in the matter of defending journalists," said Mr Harasti in his comments on the verdict of the board of jurymen at the Moscow Regional Military Court, which had acquitted all the figurants of Anna Politkovskaya's murder case; the "Caucasian Knot" has reported about it.

According to Miklos Harasti, "it is already common practice that murders and physical mutilation of the journalists who deal with corruption and human rights problems remain unpunished."

The OSCE high official has added that "no freedom of mass media is ever possible until journalists in the country are afraid to pay life for their professional work," as the IA "Regnum" was informed in the press service of the OSCE headquarters.

Regret of the failure to open Politkovskaya's murder was also expressed by Gordon Duguid, spokesman of the US State Department. He has called Russian authorities "to reveal the culprits and make them answerable as soon as possible," as the AFP reports.

Making comments on jurymen's verdict of acquittal, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has stated that it is necessary to study in detail all the possible versions and execute justice in the murder case of the journalist of the "Novaya Gazeta".

Ilya Politkovskiy, Anna's son, has stated that he still found all the four persons who had been kept in the prisoner's dock involved in his mother's murder. However, he has noted that he has no doubts of the jurymen and respects their decision, but believes that the inquiry had failed to present sufficient proofs to the court.

Oleg Scherbakov, a member of the Moscow City Bar, has told the "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" that the reason of law enforcers' defeat was in their blatant non-professionalism.