THE KILLER of prominent rights activist Natalya Estemirova has been identified and is the focus of an international hunt, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday on the first anniversary of her murder.
Russia has come under international pressure to find whoever abducted Ms Estemirova in the republic of Chechnya, killed her and dumped her bullet-riddled body in neighbouring Ingushetia.
“The perpetrator of this murder – the killer – has been uncovered and definitively identified. He is on the international wanted list,” Mr Medvedev said at a summit with German chancellor Angela Merkel. “We are now searching for not only the killer but also for the person who ordered this heinous crime.”
Ms Estemirova was one of the most vocal critics of the Kremlin’s policy in the Caucasus, where it is fighting rebels who strike daily against police, soldiers and officials in the republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.
What began in the early 1990s as a struggle for independence in Chechnya took on a strongly Islamist element and has spread to the neighbouring republics, where clan rivalries, corruption and security force brutality fuel discontent and violence.
Memorial, the rights group for which Ms Estemirova worked, has compiled extensive reports of kidnapping, torture and murder by federal forces and militias loyal to the Kremlin, particularly the private army of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Mr Kadyrov has called Memorial “enemies of the people” and has sued its leader Oleg Orlov for saying he was responsible for Ms Estemirova’s murder.
Memorial has criticised the inquiry into the death of Ms Estemirova – only the latest rights campaigner and Kremlin critic to be murdered in the Russian Federation.
Dr Merkel urged Russia to solve the case while EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton called for “swift results in the investigation into the death of Ms Estemirova . . . and other human rights defenders” in Russia.
