A death retold

Agrainy video surveillance image from above a doorway shows a man wearing a base ball cap entering a Moscow apartment building. The time, measured by a flickering red chronometer, is 16:01 on October 7, 2006. Ten minutes later, a grey-haired bespectacled woman, familiar to Russians involved in the media or human rights, walks in through the same door.

After only a further 24 seconds, the man re-emerges and walks briskly away. Inside, unseen by the camera, Anna Politkovskaya, journalist and campaigner on behalf of victims of the Chechen war, lies in a pool of blood, dead from five shots to the body and head; a modified air pistol with silencer is left next to the body.

For more than two years, the identity of the man and who hired him to kill Politkovskaya have been at the centre of one of the most dramatic intrigues in Russia's post-communist history. The highest-profile political killing in Russia for a decade, it removed from the scene one of the country's leading investigative reporters and sent a chilling message to the rest.

Since November, the mystery has been unravelling in a small Moscow courtroom at the trial of three accused of having been accomplices in the murder. Revelations about the case - in which a verdict is expected as soon as today - have brought evidence of tight links between agents of the FSB, successor to the KGB, and a criminal gang that may have carried out the killing.

Some suspect the command came from Chechnya, others from elements in the Kremlin or, conversely, from enemies seeking to discredit it. The proceedings, though unlikely to resolve that question, offer an unprecedented look into the netherworld of corruption that has penetrated law enforcement - and paint a troubling picture of how Russia is run.

Witness statements obtained by prosecutors and seen by the Financial Times indicate that a group of associates including both retired and serving policemen, at least one FSB agent, an alleged Chechen gang leader imprisoned for attempted murder and his three nephews all seem to have had some connection to the case. Some are defendants, some not.

Defendants in the trial are Sergei Khajikurbanov, a former policeman accused by prosecutors of being the "organiser" of the crime, getting the weapons and hiring the hitmen; along with two bothers, Ibrahim and Dzhebrayl Makhmudov, accused of tailing Ms Politkovskaya. Prosecutors say a third brother, Rustam Makhmudov, is the trigger puller and is being sought by police, believed to be hiding abroad.

But there is much evidence thatmore people were potentially involved who have not been identified. Security camera footage taken at a nearby supermarket on the day of the murder, and shown on Russian television in the days afterwards, appeared to show Politkovskaya being tailed by a man and a woman as she entered the store. They were never found.

"The main problem is that the role of the FSB in this whole story is not quite clear or satisfactorily explained," says Sergei Sokolov, Politkovskaya's editor at Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper where she worked. While he hastens to make clear that he does not suspect the FSB itself or the state apparatus as a whole "of organising and taking part in this entire crime", Mr Sokolov adds: "However, it is possible to suggest that the FSB is so corrupt, has spent so long playing with its agents in the ranks of criminals and bandits, that it is impossible to say who really leads whom; it's not clear who carries out whose order."

The tangled web of criminals and law enforcement officers is clear from the principal figures in the trial. Mr Khajikurbanov, the alleged recruiter, retired in 2003 from Ubop, the interior ministry's squad dedicated to fighting organised crime. According to an investigation conducted by Novaya Gazeta and introduced to the court as testimony, he was given the job by a Chechen contract killer, Lom Ali Gaitukayev, who had himself been recruited to kill Politkovskaya but was then arrested in a separate case and convicted of attempted murder, so was unable to fulfil the order.

Prosecutors on Monday told a closed session of the court that they endorsed the newspaper's conclusions but seemed unlikely to bring charges against Mr Gaitukayev, who has testified as a witness in the trial. He is serving 12 years for the other case.

Evidence has accumulated that Mr Gaitukayev was working for the FSB as an agent being handled by one Lt Col Pavel Ryaguzov, a further associate of the group of ex-law enforcement officers and gangsters. Prosecutors say they believe he supplied the killers with her address and other information from FSB databases.

The star prosecution witness is Dmitry Pavliuchenkov, by his own account a friend of these men since 2003 and himself a colonel in the OPU, an elite surveillance unit of the interior ministry's police. He says Mr Khajikurbanov tried to recruit him to track Politkovskaya a few weeks before her death. "They were a tightly knit group of comrades but they got in a fight with each other," says Sergei Kanev, a Novaya Gazeta journalist who has been investigating the murder "They are ratting each other out right and left, testifying against each other, and muck is, so to speak, rising to the surface."

But who the ultimate "client" was who put out the contract on Ms Politkovskaya's life is still unknown. Were state agencies involved in the killing? "It depends what you mean by the state," says Kirill Kabanov, a former FSB agent who heads Russia's National Anti-Corruption Committee, a nongovernmental organisation. The murder could have involved active-duty FSB and law enforcement agentsworking for a private individual as mercenaries, Politkovskaya's colleagues say.

The phenomenon of security officers working both for their organisation and for private business, even criminal business, is widespread, says Mr Kabanov. It dates back to the Soviet Union during the leadership of Yuri Andropov, under whom the KGB had so thoroughly infiltrated organised crime that it sometimes was not clear who was making the decisions, he adds.

After the collapse of communism, links between the criminals and what is now the FSB remained. "What was organised crime in the Soviet Union? At least after Andropov's time, it began to be part of the system, under the control of the KGB. The only people who the bandits were afraid of were the state security officers. And this evolved into its present-day form."

Mr Kabanov says Russian state agencies often function like private corporations, with officials using their posts simply as a business. "The FSB is not a single structure," he adds. "Working for a government agency in Russia is not state service - it's a new form of feudal vassalage. Your boss is your 'roof', your protection. He gives you your job; you owe him. Your work in an agency like the FSB is not service, which you give to a state. It is servitude, which you owe to your boss."

Bcause of what Politkovskaya's family lawyer suspects was a reluctance by the authorities to investigate the matter, it took two years to bring anyone to trial. Then in November the military judge, Col Evgeny Zubov, tried to close the hearing to the public, saying the jury had refused to be seated, afraid of the television cameras. But one juror called a local radio station to say none had objected to the presence of the media. An embarrassed Col Zubov had to open the trial to press and public.

The unexpected jury protest transformed the trial into exactly what the authorities wanted to avoid: a media frenzy, where officials are on the defensive and witnesses testify under oath, all under the watchful eyes of the press. Observers are unsure if they are watching an out-of-control circus or a carefully orchestrated cover-up: in reality it seems to have been a bit of both.

One main obstacle faced by prosecutors, though they will not admit this, is a lack of co-operation by the FSB. The agency repeatedly refused requests for evidence and only grudgingly allowed staff to testify. Case documents, for example, describe an FSB agent being asked who worked in his office, where someone had tried to obtain Politkovskaya's address and other details from FSB databases. According to the account, he responded: "I refuse to answer the question, on the orders of my leadership."

Yet prosecutors conspicuously avoid the subject of the FSB in their case. They do not ask who provided the alleged killer with the fake identification papers they displayed in court or tackle the question of why, sought by police since March 1997 in connection with a kidnapping, he had evaded detection while living in Russia.

Mr Sokolov, the editor, says the fake papers were supplied by the FSB. In his testimony he said he knew of at least one instance where, using the same false name, Rustam had worked as an informer for the FSB's Col Ryaguzov, who only recently was absolved of having been an accomplice in the killing.

According to prosecutors' documents seen by the FT, Col Ryaguzov admitted in 2007 that a friend of his, Shamil Burayev, former governor of a province in Chechnya, had asked him for Politkovskaya's address and other information, which he said he provided thinking "it was for personal reasons". This month, however, Col Ryaguzov recanted his testimony, saying he had confessed under pressure. That followed the dropping of charges against him in connection with the murder. He remains accused of being involved in a 2002 assault on a businessman.

The defendants protest their innocence: Murad Musayev, the Makhmudovs' lawyer, says Rustam was too short to be the man in the surveillance camera footage. He also disputes mobile phone records and surveillance camera footage claimed by the prosecution to establish the location of him and his two brothers at the scene of the crime. Ibrahim and Dzhebrayl, however, have been unable to produce an alibi or describe their whereabouts on the day of the murder.

Mr Khajikurbanov's lawyer argues that Mr Pavliuchenkov's secret testimony against his client - the main source of the case - should be disqualified because the two men had an ongoing dispute over a $25,000 debt. "If I were really the organiser I would have hired professionals who know Moscow, not just migrants from Chechnya," Mr Khajikurbanov told the court.

Prosecution counsel, two perennially cheerful women in blue uniforms, while themselves seeking to avoid mention of the FSB, have called Politkovskaya's friends and asked them open-ended questions, allowing them to put their own conclusions on the public record.

December brought a dramatic altercation when Mr Sokolov testified that Mr Gaitukayev, along with nephew Dzhebrayl, worked as agents for the FSB, specifically for Col Ryaguzov. "Lom Ali Gaitukayev is an FSB agent and, as far as I know, his handler was Ryaguzov. Another agent of his was Dzhebrayl Makhmudov," the editor said. "He was not my agent!", Col Ryaguzov blurted out, and the judge tried to silence Mr Sokolov. Later, Col Ryaguzov was asked the same question under oath in a secret hearing. Was Mr Gaitukayev his agent? According to more than one person present, he declined to answer, citing state secrecy.

Col Ryaguzov's boss, Col Vadim Slyusar, also testified in the trial in a closed hearing on December 18. According to testimony by Dmitry Muratov, chief editor of Novaya Gazeta, in February 2006, Col Slyusar, Mr Gaitukayev, Mr Burayev and Col Ryaguzov flew together to Ingushetia, at the time the only way to travel to Chechnya.

Mr Burayev, the former provincial Chechen governor, was arrested in 2007 in connection with the Politkovskaya case but was ultimately not charged. He has denied asking Col Ryaguzov for information on Politkovskaya, who devoted many articles to alleged corruption within the entourage of Chechnya's Kremlin-backed president Ramzan Kadyrov. Mr Kadyrov has always denied a role in Politkovskaya's death. "Any journalist who wants to make a career for himself now writes that I am the killer of Politkovskaya. But I had nothing to do with it," he told a December press conference.

No matter what the decision of the jury, the search for whoever ordered the murder will continue. "Here in this court, we are only dealing with the middlemen," says Mr Muratov. "We cannot say once the sentence has been handed down that the Politkovskaya affair has been solved. No: only when the 'customer' has been found."

Three in the dock...

Sergei Khajikurbanov

Former member of Ubop, an elite interior ministry police task force to combat organised crime. Fired in 2003. Charged with being the "organiser" of the Politkovskaya murder, obtaining the pistol and recruiting the killers.

Ibrahim Makhmudov

Nephew of Lom Ali Gaitujkayev (see right) and defendant in the trial, accused of tailing Politkovskaya before the murder.

Dzherbrayl Makhmudov Brother of Ibrahim, also a defendant.

According to witness testimony, an FSB agent/ informer working for Pavel Ryaguzov (see right).

...and six in the spotlight

Pavel Ryaguzov

Lieutenant colonel in the FSB, admitted to prosecutors that he passed information on Politkovskaya to Shamil Burayev. Then recanted his testimony. Not a defendant in the Politkovskaya trial but is charged with a separate crime of extortion from 2002. Accused of running Lom Ali Gaitukayev, and Rustam and Dzherbrayl Makhmudov as FSB agents.

Vadim Slyusar

Col in FSB, Lt Col Ryaguzov's boss and witness in the trial. Seemingly an associate of Mr Gaitukayev and Mr Burayev. According to the testimony and statements of several people, he flew to Ingushetia with Lt Col Ryaguzov, Mr Burayev and Mr Gaitukayev in February 2006.

Lom Ali Gaitukayev

Chechen contract killer and apparently an FSB agent handled by Lt Col Ryaguzov. According to testimony, was first to receive order to kill Politkovskaya, but it is unclear from whom. Arrested in 2006, convicted of a separate attempted murder.

Shamil Burayev

Former provincial Chechen governor. Lt Col Ryaguzov said, then recanted, that he was asked by Mr Burayev to get information on Politkovskaya in 2006, before she was killed.

Dmitry Pavliuchenkov

Formerly a highranking officer in Opu, a surveillance division of Russia's interior ministry police. After a fallingout with Mr Khajikurbanov, he entered a witness protection programme and testified that the latter had tried to recruit him to place Politkovskaya under surveillance.

Rustam Makhmudov Nephew of Mr Gaitukayev, brother of Ibrahim and Dzhebrayl. Sought by police as suspected killer of Politkovskaya.

Believed to be in hiding outside Russia. According to testimony, he is an FSB agent/ informer who has worked for Lt Col Ryaguzov.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009