Memorial for murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Kasparov comment

Описание: (30 Aug 2007)
Moscow - 30 August 2007
1. Wide shot pan meeting in memory of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya on her birthday, large photographs of her, speaker addressing crowd
2. Wide shot meeting, people holding up photos of Anna
3. Close up photo of Anna Politkovskaya held up by person in crowd
4. SOUNDBITE: (Russian) Garry Kasparov, opposition leader and Kremlin critic
"We should treat with great caution what the prosecution claims. Russia's prosecutors make lots of statements, but, as a rule, these statements contain concealed political meaning. Until we have an opportunity to see a documented base which corroborates prosecutors' conclusions, it is too early to speak about solving this case."
FILE: Moscow - 2000
5. Various of of Anna Politkovskaya at a "Novaya Gaseta" news conference (newspaper she worked for)
FILE: Moscow - 7 October 2006
++NIGHT SHOTS+++
6. Various of ambulance taking the body of the murdered Anna Politkovskaya from her home to morgue
FILE: Moscow - 8 October 2006
7. Wide shot flowers by the wall of Anna Politkovskaya's home on the day following her murder
8. Various of Anna's portrait, candles and red carnations, at makeshift shrine to her outside her home
STORYLINE:
Prosecutors have released two suspects in the contract-style killing of investigative journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, Russian news agencies reported on Thursday, and a third suspect is no longer linked to the case.
The chief prosecutor's announcement on Monday that ten suspects had been arrested in the case was met with scepticism from media watchdogs and editors at the newspaper where Politkovskaya used to work.
The decline in the pool of suspects was likely to reinforce doubts about the prosecutors' case.
Politkovskaya's persistent reporting of atrocities against civilians in war-scarred Chechnya had angered the Kremlin and the Kremlin-backed Chechen leadership, but won her admiration in her homeland and international acclaim.
Marking what would have been Politkovskaya's 49th birthday, some 200 to 300 people - including prominent human rights advocates, journalists and opposition leaders - rallied in a central Moscow square on Thursday evening.
They marched towards the apartment building where she was killed and planned to lay flowers at the door.
Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika said the October 7 shooting was organised by a Chechen criminal group in Moscow that specialised in contract killings, and that among the suspects were five law enforcement officers accused of tracking Politkovskaya and providing her killers with information.
Their arrests seemed to confirm long-standing allegations of collusion between police officers and members of organised crime groups in Moscow.
But two police officers have since been released, news agencies reported on Thursday, citing sources close to the investigation.
The prosecutor general's office refused to comment on the reports.
A Federal Security Service lieutenant colonel who had been named as among the suspects was still being held, but his arrest was not connected to Politkovskaya's killing, said Moscow military court spokesman Alexander Minchanovsky on Thursday.
One of the remaining suspects, a former police major, could not have been involved in the killing because he had been in prison from 2004 until December 2006, the Kommersant newspaper reported Thursday.
The lawyer for another suspect said his client, Dzhabrail Makhmudov, was wrongly arrested and had been subjected to physical and verbal abuse during his two weeks in custody.

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