Politieke moorden in Rusland

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 a fairly high number of political murders have occurred in Russia, whereby in quite a few cases, but not in all of them, the victims were journalists. The number of political murders has not declined convincingly since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000. Even though it is not always possible to say with certainty if a murder has a political background or not, there are quite a number of cases which show a clear political motive. This is the case, for instance, in the deaths of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 and the human rights activist Natalya Estemirova in 2009. Recently published material makes clear that in practically all cases of political murder in Russia, the perpetrators of the crime and especially those who ordered it, have not been brought to justice. Worse still, there is compelling evidence that Russian authorities purposely sabotage serious investigations into those crimes. Most investigations do not result in a trial to begin with, but a successful outcome of a case in a pre-trial investigation or before a court is also seriously hampered by the fact that all available evidence indicates that the judiciary in Russia is not truly independent, but can be easily influenced by the powers-that-be. There also is a culture of impunity, especially in the North Caucasus, as far as killings and abductions by Russian federal forces are concerned. Furthermore, there are strong indications that several well-publicized killings of Russian citizens abroad have been organized from the Russian Federation. In all those instances, Russian authorities do not show an interest in a serious investigation of the crime.