No Senior Officials Attend Service for Slain Critic of Putin's Chechnya Policies
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
MOSCOW, Oct. 10 -- In the House of Farewell, an austere, cavernous funeral hall at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery, the body of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya lay in an open casket Tuesday afternoon as thousands of mourners -- ambassadors, journalists, civil activists, politicians and ordinary Russians -- filed past and paid their final respects.
No senior Kremlin official attended -- an absence that people here noted, along with the almost complete silence of President Vladimir Putin in the immediate wake of the apparent contract killing of Politkovskaya in the lobby of her apartment Saturday.
"It's really strange to see none of our senior officials here," Eduard Sagalayev, chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Corporation, told the assembled mourners.
The Kremlin said it was represented by Deputy Culture and Press Minister Leonid Nadirov.
Shortly after Politkovskaya was put in the ground, Putin, on an official visit to Germany, condemned the killing, but not without a parting swipe at a woman who was one of his fiercest critics.
"We must be clear that it was a dreadful and unacceptable crime which cannot be allowed to go unpunished," Putin told reporters after meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dresden, the city where Putin served as a KGB officer in the 1980s.
"Her influence on political life in the country was extremely insignificant in scale," he said. "She was known in journalist and human rights circles, but her influence on political life in Russia was minimal. This murder does much more harm to Russia and Chechnya than any of her articles."
Putin's only other publicly reported comment on the killing came in a telephone conversation with President Bush when he promised an "objective investigation."
Politkovskaya was renowned internationally for fearless reporting on the brutality of Russia's prosecution of two wars in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. "This is a tragedy for Russia," Yasen Zasursky, dean of Moscow State University's journalism faculty, told mourners. "They executed our conscience."
Prosecutors and colleagues have said she was almost certainly killed because of her work. Thirteen journalists have been killed since Putin came to power, and there have been no convictions in any of the cases.
Russian newspapers have reported that police are studying videotapes from a supermarket where Politkovskaya was shopping and was followed by a man and woman just before the killing.
Politkovskaya, 48, had just carried groceries up to her apartment and was coming back down for more bags inside her modest Lada car when her killer shot her four times. Bullets struck her in the chest and shoulder and then in the head.
Investigators have obtained grainy footage from a surveillance camera of a young man leaving her apartment building immediately after the shooting.
Politkovskaya's newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, which is partly owned by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, has offered a reward of nearly $1 million for information leading to the capture of her killers and whoever ordered the murder.
Enveloped in white satin with gold trim, Politkovskaya was almost unrecognizable in death, her piercing eyes closed. Her coffin was surrounded by red and white roses and carnations that mourners placed on the floor.
More than a dozen people, including Politkovskaya's sister and U.S. Ambassador William Burns, offered brief eulogies, standing at the foot of the coffin.
"Without courageous and independent journalists like Anna Politkovskaya, Paul Klebnikov, and others who have lost their lives, no society can defeat corruption or protect the dignity of all its citizens," Burns said. Klebnikov, the American editor of Forbes Russia, was shot and killed in Moscow in 2004.
"For the sake of Russia, I hope that Anna's tragic death will inspire respect for freedom of expression and the rule of law," Burns said. "For the sake of Russia, I hope that Anna's death will remind people of the importance of telling the truth, and seeking justice. For the sake of Russia, I hope that her death will not be in vain."
The anger of some speakers was palpable. "Does professional activity in this country always lead to a bullet in the head?" asked Politkovskaya' sister, Elena, noting that a corruption-busting central banker was gunned down here last month.
The funeral began at 2 p.m., and two hours later some people were still trying to get into the funeral hall. Moscow police said about 3,000 people attended.
"I didn't know her. I just read her," said a tearful Anna Khorokevich, 75, who works at the Institute of Slavic Studies in Moscow. "She was trying to save the honor of Russia. I had to come. For me it's a huge loss."
From the funeral hall, women scattered flowers in front of the Cadillac hearse, which was followed by Politkovskaya's ex-husband, her son, Ilya, and daughter, Vera. At the graveside, an Orthodox priest said final prayers before a few family members kissed her goodbye. The lid was then put on the casket.
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