A Russian human rights lawyer renowned for his work on abuses in Chechnya was shot to death Monday by a masked gunman who followed him from a news conference, officials said. A young journalist who tried to intervene also was gunned down.
The broad-daylight shootings of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova prompted grief and outrage in a country where lawyers and journalists who challenge the official version of justice are frequently targeted.
Markelov had fought the early release of a Russian colonel whose killing of a Chechen woman in 2000 put names and faces on the gruesome rights abuses in the war-wracked region. His death Monday angered many Chechens, already upset by the release of last week of the military officer.
Colleagues drew comparisons with the 2006 killing of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya — a client of Markelov's and a fellow enemy of rights abuses in Chechnya and across former President Vladimir Putin's Russia.
"This is a horrible, frightening crime," said Tatyana Lokshina of the Human Rights Watch.
Prominent rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva called the shooting "a disgrace for Russia," the Interfax news agency reported.
Markelov, 34, was shot near a building where he had just held a news conference, about half a mile (1 kilometer) from the Kremlin, said Viktoria Tsyplenkova, a spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee of the Moscow prosecutor's office.
Markelov was shot in the back of the head at close range by an attacker who followed him after the news conference, wore a stocking-style mask and had a silencer on his gun — clear signs of a planned killing, state-run RIA-Novosti news agency reported, citing an unidentified law enforcement official. Police also reportedly said there were several witnesses.
Anastasia Baburova, a freelance journalist in her mid-20s who had worked for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was shot when she tried to intervene after Markelov was attacked, said Andrei Lipsky, a deputy editor. Another Novaya Gazeta editor, Sergei Sokolov, later said she died on an operating table.
Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in 2006 after years of reporting on, and criticizing Russian conduct in, Chechnya. She never hesitated to remind her audience of the horrors of war; she cautioned against giving government too much power to limit civil liberties and conduct clandestine business. It is widely believed that her death was ordered by an unnamed Russian politician, most likely working at the behest of Vladimir Putin. Markelov was her attorney and ally in the battle for human rights in Russia.
