Europe News

Arrests in Moscow murder of human rights lawyer and journalist

Nov 5, 2009, 10:52 GMT

Moscow - Ten months after the double murder of a Russian human rights lawyer and journalist on the streets of Moscow, police have taken two suspects from the far-right scene into custody. According to the Interfax news agency, a justice official said Thursday that the suspects, a man and a woman, were accused of killing Stanislav Markelov, 34, and Anastasia Baburova, 25, due to their anti-fascist activities. Marelov and Baburova are said to have been led by one of the suspects, a young woman, to a metro station following a press conference in central Moscow last January. There they were shot by the other suspect, who fled the scene on the metro. The Kremlin-critical Novaya Gazeta newspaper, with which both victims had worked, reacted with caution. Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov said it was 'too early' to reach conclusions on the high- profile murder case. Following the murders, some had assumed that the perpetrators had come from the Caucasus region where the victims had been involved in defending human rights. Sokolov said it was also possible that they came from the neo-fascist scene. The far-right political and para-military organization Russia National Unity (RNU), to which the suspects are believed to have belonged, denied any involvement in the murders.

Europe News

Arrests in Moscow murder of human rights lawyer and journalist

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