Hundreds in Moscow attended the funeral Jan. 23 of Anastasia Baburova, the 25-year-old journalist killed as she tried to defend human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov when a masked gunman shot him at point-blank range in broad daylight on a busy Moscow street this week. The two had just emerged from a press conference, in which Markelov had said he would appeal the early release of the killer of a Chechen girl, raped and murdered by a Russian army colonel during the war in Chechnya. (RFE/RL [2], Reuters [3], Jan. 23)
Hundreds protested in the Chechen capital following Markelov's murder Jan. 19. Markelov fought the early release of Col. Yuri Budanov, who was freed last week with more than a year left in his 10-year murder sentence. Budanov admitted strangling Heda Kungayeva in 2000, saying he believed she was a rebel sniper. Budanov's release sparked protests across Chechnya. (AP [4], Jan. 20)
See our last posts on Chechnya [5] and the struggle in the Caucasus [6].
