President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday that the killer of human rights activist Natalya Estemirova has been identified and an international search was under way, but he named no names, leaving critics wondering whether investigators were looking for a scapegoat.
Medvedev spoke about the case in Yekaterinburg at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who prodded him on Estemirova's death, which occured exactly a year ago Thursday.
Law enforcement officials are hunting for the killer and trying to identify the person who ordered the killing, Medvedev said.
"The hitman of the murder has been identified … but not the one who ordered this grave crime," he said.
"It is important that Russia continues to investigate that murder," Merkel said. "In order to feel security in the legal system, it's important that such high-profile and public cases be successfully solved."
Human rights group Amnesty International and Council of Europe ombudsman Thomas Hammarberg also criticized the lack of resolution to Estemirova's murder Thursday.
Medvedev took a personal interest in Estemirova's killing shortly after it occurred, issuing an order during a news conference with Merkel in August to find and punish the killers.
Representatives of the Memorial rights group, where Estemirova worked, voiced skepticism that a manhunt was under way for the killer.
Yekaterina Sokiryanskaya, an activist with Memorial's Grozny branch, said investigators only had one version of the crime that implicated Islamic militant Alkhazur Bashayev, who was shot dead by law enforcement authorities in November. Investigators linked Bashayev to the killing after finding a photograph of Estemirova in a militant hideout that he supposedly used.
Sokiryanskaya said Bashayev certainly had accomplices but questioned whether investigators were making a mistake by linking the killing to Islamic militants.
“We think the version implicating Bashayev is completely unsound,” she said.
Memorial head Oleg Orlov agreed, saying, “This is a highly dubious version but very convenient for the authorities,” Interfax reported.
Orlov accused investigators last week of ignoring evidence that Chechen officials might have been involved in the death.
Estemirova collected information on illegal executions, kidnappings and arson carried out by Chechen law enforcement officers, Orlov said.
Estemirova was kidnapped in Chechnya's capital, Grozny, on July 15, 2009, and found shot dead alongside a road in Ingushetia several hours later.
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