Thousands of Chechens have demanded Russian authorities bring to justice the killers of a human rights lawyer and a reporter who were gunned down in central Moscow.
Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer who fought against the early release of a former Russian tank commander imprisoned for the murder of a Chechen girl, was shot dead less than a kilometre from the Kremlin after a news briefing yesterday.
A reporter for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, who had walked down the road with Mr Markelov, was shot in the head when she ran after the killer and later died in hospital.
About 3,000 people came out onto the main square in Grozny, the regional capital of Chechnya. Some held banners saying ‘Why does the law not operate in Russia?’ and ‘The murder of Markelov is a slap in the face for the Russian law enforcement agencies’.
Mr Markelov, 34, represented the family of 18-year-old Elza Kungayeva, whose murder in 2000 became a symbol of human rights abuses in Chechnya.
Her family said she had been raped and murdered in a drunken rampage by Russian troops.
The Czech Presidency of the European Union expressed its condolences to the families of those murdered and called on Russia to carry out a full investigation.
‘The Presidency calls on the Russian authorities to investigate the murder of Mr. Markelov as well as all previous attacks on human rights defenders, journalists and NGO activists promptly and impartially and to bring all perpetrators to justice,’ it said in a statement.
