Authorities have arrested 10 people in the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and they soon will be charged, Russia’s chief prosecutor said Monday.
“We have made serious progress in this case,” Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika told President Vladimir Putin in televised remarks. “As of today, 10 people have been arrested, and literally in the nearest future they will be charged with the commission of this grave crime.”
Chaika did not identify those arrested.
Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter and critic of Putin, was fatally shot in her Moscow apartment building last October in a killing that caused an international outcry and compounded concern about the safety of journalists in Russia.
The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists said 13 journalists have been killed in contract-style murders since Putin took office in 2000.
Politkovskaya had written passionately and critically about abuses by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in Chechnya.
Her killing came less than two months before the radiation poisoning death in London of Kremlin critic and former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko. On his deathbed, Litvinenko blamed Putin for his poisoning — an allegation that the Kremlin denied.