Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Ex police officer charged with killing of Politkovskaya

Updated at 5:12 am on 18 July 2012

Russian investigators have charged a former police officer with helping to organise the killing of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006.

At the time of her death, Ms Politkovskaya, 58, was investigating human-rights abuses in Chechnya and high-level corruption across Russia.

Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov is accused of following her in the days before she was murdered and giving a gunman the weapon used to kill her at her Moscow apartment on 7 October, 2006.

She was shot several times in the head, chest and shoulder at point-blank range.

Human rights groups and Ms Politkovskaya's colleagues at the Novaya Gazeta have criticised the slow pace of the investigation.

The case is one of at least a dozen Russian journalists whose murders are unsolved.

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