A leading critic of Russia's ruling despot, Vladamir Putin, has been assassinated:
RUSSIA’S most famous investigative reporter, Anna Politkovskaya, was gunned down in the lift of her Moscow apartment block yesterday in an apparent contract killing.
A fearless opponent of Russia’s wars in Chechnya who once described President Vladimir Putin as a “KGB snoop” and compared him to Stalin, she was shot as she returned home from a shopping trip at 4.30pm. A pistol and four bullets were found near her body.
She was the most prominent of dozens of Russian journalists murdered in the past 10 years and her death has dealt a serious blow to the country’s reputation.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the former president, said: “It’s a strike against all the democratic independent press, a terrible crime against the entire country, against all of us.”
Last night police were hunting a young man who was caught on a video camera in the hall of the apartment block wearing a black baseball cap. Officers said the killer, whose face is not visible on the footage, followed Politkovskaya inside as she unloaded the shopping from her car, and killed her with two shots to the chest and head.
Politkovskaya, 48 and divorced with a son and a daughter, was one of the few Russian journalists who dared to write critically about widespread human rights abuses in Chechnya. She won international acclaim for her reports but was hated by many in Russia’s security forces.
Readers will note Chabad's "chief rabbi of Russia" has been providing Putin with cover for several years now. I wonder if he feels any remorse?