Five convicted in murder of Anna Politkovskaya

New York, May 20, 2014–A Moscow City Court jury today convicted five individuals for planning, participating, and carrying out the 2006 murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya, local and international press reported. Three of the defendants had been acquitted in an earlier trial. A mastermind was not named in today’s verdict.

“We commend today’s verdict in this high-profile case, which took almost eight years,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “We urge Russian authorities to continue pursuing justice. Anyone who played a role in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya must be held to account.”

Politkovskaya, a fierce Kremlin critic renowned for her reporting on human rights abuses during the Chechen conflict, was shot dead in her apartment building in Moscow. Russia ranked 10th on CPJ’s 2014 Impunity index, an annual ranking of places where journalists are slain and killers go free. Nine of every 10 journalist murders in Russia are unsolved.