Anastasiya Baburova

We received an unusual email last week. Michaella Ortega wrote to tell us that Marlon Recamata, who confessed to shooting her father, Philippine journalist Gerardo Ortega, in 2011, had been convicted and sentenced to life for the crime.

Russian investigators have adopted a more serious tone when discussing unsolved journalist murders, but officials still lack the will to apprehend masterminds of the killings. The lack of convictions takes a serious toll on investigative journalism. By Nina Ognianova

New York, May 6, 2011--The conviction and sentencing of two defendants in the 2009 double murder of freelance journalist Anastasiya Baburova and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov is a landmark victory in the fight against impunity in press killings in Russia, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. 

Moscow City Court Judge Aleksandr Zamashnyuk gave defendant Nikita Tikhonov life in a strict-regime penal colony. Yevgeniya Khasis, Tikhonov's common-law wife, will serve an 18-year term in a regular-regime penal colony as an accomplice in the murder, local and international press reported. Tikhonov and Khasis denied involvement in the murder, and their lawyers filed an appeal, the BBC Russian service reported. When he announced the sentence, Zamashnyuk said the two committed the crime with other unidentified accomplices, the Moscow-based independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported.

New York, April 29, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the guilty verdict in the 2009 murder of Anastasiya Baburova, freelance reporter with the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, who was shot and killed in Moscow along with human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov. Markelov had represented Novaya Gazeta journalists in various legal cases. 

Moscow, September 30, 2010--Top Russian investigators have pledged to pursue 19 cases of murdered journalists presented to them by a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists, reopening several closed cases and pursuing new leads in a number of other probes.

In an encouraging ruling last week, the Basmanny District Court in Moscow ordered that two suspects in the January 2009 double murder of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anastasiya Baburova and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov be kept in custody pending trial.

New York, April 29, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges members of Russia’s parliament to reject a sweeping new bill that would return censorship rights to Russia’s KGB successor, the Federal Security Service, if passed.

Top Developments
• International community intensifies pressure to halt impunity.
• Authorities restart investigations into Klebnikov, Politkovskaya murders.

November 2009

News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

We issued this statement following today’s announcement by Russia’s Investigative Committee at the Prosecutor General’s Office that two individuals have been arrested and charged with the January 19 murder in Moscow of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasiya Baburova. The two suspects are 29-year-old Nikita Tikhonov and 24-year-old Yevgeniya Khasis, identified in the press as members of a neo-fascist group. Reports identify Tikhonov as the shooter and Khasis as the woman who followed Markelov and Baburova, and informed Tikhonov of their whereabouts...