A Russian former senior police official, arrested last year in connection with the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, has said London-based Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev and dissident oligarch Boris Berezovsky might have been behind the killing, Kommersant daily reported on Wednesday.
Lt Col Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, held in August last year and charged with organizing the murder, said Politkovskaya had a quarrel with Zakayev and Berezovsky in London but did not elaborate, Kommersant said.
Russia's Investigative Committe has neither confirmed nor denied this. Pavlyuchenkov's lawyer, Karen Nersisyan, said the former police officer knew the names through Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, a convicted Chechen criminal, who is also charged with organizing Politkovskaya's murder.
Zakayev said he "never saw nor spoke with" Gaitukayev, while Berezovsky declined to comment when contacted by the paper.
Russia has been trying for years to extradite Zakayev and and Berezovsky, who are wanted on terrorism and fraud charges, respectively.
Although a number of people have been charged in connection with the killing, inlcuding the suspected gunman, no one has been arrested for ordering the killing of Politkovskaya, who won fame by exposing human rights abuses by the Russian army and its allies in Chechnya.
Pavlyuchenkov, charged with forming a group to carry out the killing and providing the gunman with a weapon, said he was also ready to testify in another high-profile murder, the 2004 killing of U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov, who edited the Russian edition of Forbes business magazine.
