MOSCOW, November 14 Former Organized Crime Control operative Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, convicted of organizing the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, was released from prison to participate in a special military operation. his lawyer Alexey Mikhalchik said on Tuesday.
According to him, he concluded a contract, after which he was pardoned. “Then he signed a new contract and holds one of the leadership positions in one of the combat units,” the defense lawyer noted. He recalled that Khadzhikurbanov has extensive combat experience and did not admit guilt from the very beginning of the trial.
Politkovskaya, who in 2003 received the OSCE Prize for Journalism and Democracy for her work in support of “human rights and media freedom,” was shot dead in a Moscow entrance on October 7, 2006. The investigation considers her journalistic activity to be the motive for the crime; the masterminds of the murder were not found.
In 2014, the Moscow City Court sentenced Rustam Makhmudov and Lom-Ali Gaitukaev, accused of carrying out the murder, to life sentences. Their accomplices Ibragim Makhmudov, Dzhabrail Makhmudov (Rustam’s brothers) and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov received 12, 13.5 and 20 years in a maximum security colony. Former Moscow police officer Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, who helped the killers, received 11 years in prison.