Murdered Russian reporter, a political killing

Russians and Chechens alike mourned journalist and critic of President Vladimir Putin Anna Politkovskaya yesterday, saying her murder was a political killing to stifle the free press.

The US said it was "shocked and profoundly saddened" by the murder of the 48-year-old mother of two, who won numerous prizes for her dogged pursuit of rights abuses by Mr Putin's government.

But there was still no word from the Kremlin, whose campaign against separatist rebels in the violent southern province of Chechnya had often been the target of Ms Politkovskaya's investigative reporting.

Yesterday, Mr Putin chaired Russia's powerful Security Council to "discuss various issues of internal and external policy", the president's Web site www.kremlin.ru said, but made no mention of Ms Politkovskaya's murder.

She was shot dead on Saturday at her apartment block in central Moscow in a killing prosecutors linked to her work.

Washington and the European Union urged Russia to conduct an immediate and thorough investigation "to bring to justice all those responsible for this heinous murder". Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika has taken charge of the probe.

In the days before her death, Ms Politkovskaya had been working on a story about torture in Chechnya, which had been due to run today, along with photographs, her newspaper Novaya Gazeta said. It said her death had disrupted the publication.

Independent radio Ekho Moskvy quoted Chechnya's pro-Moscow Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov as saying: "Her stories weren't always objective. But that was her personal point of view."

Ms Politkovskaya had previously accused his semi-private guard of being linked to kidnappings and torture, a charge he denied.

In Chechnya's capital Grozny, many remembered Ms Politkovskaya, saying the region had lost a truthful friend.

"It is through her that the world learnt about all the lawlessness done here," said Mustafa Kurkiyev, an independent journalist.

"She died because she displeased someone," Aindi Sagaipov, a local administration worker in Aurgun outside Grozny, said. "For someone, she must have been a pain in the neck."

In Moscow, hundreds of Muscovites thronged Pushkin Square, lit candles and laid flowers at portraits of Ms Politkovskaya.

"This is a political killing, there is no doubt about it, and the authorities are mixed up in this," Valery Borshchev, a member of Russia's liberal Yabloko party, told reporters.