Newspaper: Police officer denies involvement in Russian journalist's killing AP November 11, 2006
MOSCOW: A police officer sought by authorities in connection with the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter who uncovered abuses against civilians in Chechnya, denied allegations of his involvement in the murder, according to an interview published Saturday.
Alexander Prilepin told the government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta that he and his colleagues had been angered by Politkovskaya's reports, which he called unfounded, but added that he had never thought about taking revenge.
Politkovskaya, who exposed killings, torture and other abuses against civilians in Chechnya, was gunned down in an apparent contract killing in her apartment building in Moscow on Oct. 7. The gunmen have not been found and the murder set off a chorus of protest from foreign governments and international organizations.
Russian news reports said that investigators traveled to the Siberian region of Khanty-Mansiisk, about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) east of Moscow, to check the allegations that Prilepin and another police officer wanted for alleged crimes in Chechnya could have been involved in Politkovskaya's murder.
Following a series of Politkovskaya's articles exposing police atrocities in Chechnya, one of the officers whom she accused of abuses, Sergei Lapin, was implicated in e-mail threats against the journalist. In 2001, Politkovskaya fled to Vienna after receiving warnings that Lapin was intent on revenge.
Lapin was detained in 2002 and later sentenced to 11 years in prison by a court in Chechnya.
Prilepin, speaking to Rossiyskaya Gazeta from an undisclosed location, insisted that neither he nor colleagues of his who are also being sought by authorities had nothing to do with Politkovskaya's murder.
"I wouldn't conceal that most of my comrades, who had been in Chechnya and lost their friends and colleagues there, had been angered by the media providing ideological support for the rebels and casting us as butchers," Prilepin said in a reference to Politkovskaya's articles. "But no one has ever had any plans to take revenge on journalists. Moreover, it's completely unclear why we should remember the old grievances now and decide to take revenge after so many years."
Prilepin said he had been hiding from the authorities not because he was guilty, but because he feared a biased trial in Chechnya at the hands of local Kremlin-backed authorities.
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