The main news from the trial of Anna Politkovskaya’s alleged assassins, which began in Moscow yesterday, is the fact that the process is open to the media and the public.
The case is being heard by the Moscow district military court, most probably because one of the defendants is Pavel Ryaguzov, lieutenant colonel of Russia’s Federal Security Service.
It is for this reason too that Polikovskaia’s children, Ilia and Vera, were sure that the judge would close the proceedings as the prosecution demanded. But he did not – perhaps because this is one of very few cases of multiple political assassinations in Russia in which the prosecution is truly interested in achieving a convincing conviction and in proving to the world that Russian courts are independent and fair.
The prosecution needs a conviction, and a conviction that at least looks cogent, because Prime Minister Putin, Russia’s president at the time of the assassination wants it.
After Politkovskaya was killed he said that her death did much more harm to Russia than her writing. This was certainly true: Politkovskaya’s assassination resulted in an avalanche of unfavourable publicity for Putin’s Russia abroad, while her publications, particularly about the realities of Russia’s second Chechen war and its outcomes, were not at all popular among the majority of the Russian population.
She was outspoken about the methods the Russian forces used in Chechnya, about the methods of their allies among the local population and about the order that they created and maintained in the wake of the war. These were not pretty stories, and few Russians wanted to be bothered with them.
But facing the barrage of criticism abroad, Putin promised that Politkovskaya’s assassins would be found. He may have created the Russia in which more journalists have been killed in the last 10 years than anywhere else in the world, except Iraq, but he certainly did not need Politkovskaya to die.
There could be any number of others who did. She received death threats from different quarters, from Chechnya, to Moscow, to Khanty-Mansiisk.
According to the chief editor of the Novaya Gazeta for which she worked (and which lost several other of its journalists to killers) at the time of her death she was working on an article which outlined the involvement of Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s pro–Russian prime minister, in the kidnapping of his political opponents.
The four accused in the trial are Ryaguzov, who is said to have provided Politkovskaya’s home address to the killers; two Chechens, the brothers of Rustam Makmudov who is said to have actually pulled the trigger but who has not been found; and Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a police investigator from the organised crime unit of the Moscow police.
It is not impossible that these people will be found in this or that way guilty, although the absence of the main accused is beyond irony. But Ramzan Kadyrov, whose name comes up in the investigation materials, has not been asked to testify.
Anna Politkovskaya lived a difficult life. From 1999 onwards she often went to the war zones and refugee camps in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. In December 1999 she organised the evacuation of 89 people from an old people’s home in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, bombed by the Russian forces, and then found accommodation for them in Russia.
Later she initiated charitable action to provide food, medicines and clothing for those who returned to Chechnya and found themselves destitute. She personally accompanied three tons of collected goods to Chechnya. In October 2002, when Chechen terrorists took hostage several hundred people in a Moscow theatre, she was one of the people with whom the terrorists agreed to speak.
She went into the building accompanied by only one other person in an attempt – it proved futile – to negotiate. In 2004 she survived an attempt to poison her. She investigated corruption in the defence ministry and among the high command of the Russian army contingent in Chechnya. She was certainly not loved for all that.
Her trial is not going to be an easy matter, either – that is if the court really wants to find out who ordered her death.
Peace and Justice Post 
Corrupt Egyptian system: feeds the IDF, starves Gazans, oppresses journalists
February 6, 2009Iqbal Tamimi | Palestine Think Tank, Feb 5, 2009
Once upon an alleged democracy, the Egyptian government decided a couple of days ago to try the journalist Majdi Hussein, the secretary-general of the Egyptian Labour party in a military court – even though he is a civilian – because he broke the law when he tried to “illegally enter the Gaza Strip”.
One wonders what is legal and what is not when it comes to Gaza. It seems the law in Egypt is extremely elastic and can accommodate all manipulations and tailoring of the law to fit different sizes of growing plots. The good old Egyptian system is abiding by the law to the letter, and that’s why it wants to try a journalist in a military court for entering Gaza ‘illegally’ while the good old authority was providing the Israeli military ‘legally’ with tons of foods through the Gaza crossings while blocking any food sent to the starved to death children of Gaza who were burned to the bone by white phosphorus by that same Israeli army Egypt was feeding.
Last month the opposition Egyptian newspaper Alosbooa ‘The Week’ revealed in one of its reports a controversial story that was not refuted by the authorities about the Egyptian company ‘International Union of Food Industries’ which was providing the Israeli army with large quantities of homegrown Egyptian vegetables during the aggression on Gaza, since the very first day of the aggression.
Contrary to what was expected, trade exchange between Egypt and Israel because of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians has increased notably to 4 billion dollars in addition to exports of oil and gas.
Regarding the journalist Majdi Husse, this was not his first encounter with the Egyptian authorities. He was Chief Editor of an Egyptian Islamic bi-weekly when he was imprisoned for 4 months along with the journalist Muhammad Hilal in 1998 with charges of defaming former Minister of the Interior in Egypt, Lt. Gen. Hussein al-Alfi.
Hussein said he was prevented twice by the Egyptian authorities from entering the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing point, forcing him to take an alternative route to get into the Palestinian territ“Food Channel”ories.
The Egyptian prosecutor in Al-Arish city said the decision to put Hussein on military trial (even though he is a civilian) came after three days of investigations with him, and that he was arrested upon his arrival to the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza. The trial of Hussein is expected to be held on Thursday.
The Labour party in Egypt considered subjecting one of its top officials to a military trial as a grave violation of human rights, since he is a civilian, and commented that Majdi’s decision to get into Gaza Strip was driven by his “nationalist, Islamic, and popular considerations, and that Majdi’s determination to enter the Strip reflects the general feeling in the Egyptian street to lift the siege on Gaza and to open the Rafah crossing point before the Palestinian people.”
Majidi is not the only Arab journalist Egyptian authorities prevented from entering Gaza, the Al-Jazeera team was denied entry into Gaza too. The Egyptian authorities denied two of Al-Jazeera’s top journalists Ahmed Mansour and Ghassan Bin Jiddo entry into the Gaza Strip without explaining the reasons. Especially since Egypt had granted entry into the Gaza Strip to foreign and European journalists.
In a telephone call with his satellite channel, Mansour confirmed that the Egyptian authorities told them that they (he and bin Jiddo) were denied entry, at a time it granted many journalists of different nationalities the right to enter the Strip.
“We presented our identification documents to the Egyptian authorities and requested permission to enter the Gaza Strip as other journalists did, but we were denied entry,” added Mansour.
Mansour also said that the Egyptian officials stopped answering their telephone calls, but he stressed that the Al-Jazeera team will remain at the borders till a rational reason by the Egyptian authorities is given to justify such action.
Hence, according to the law-abiding Egyptian authorities, it is illegal to open the crossing to allow food and aid to the starved Gaza children, but it is legal to feed the Zionist army who were barbecuing Gaza children. It is legal to allow foreign journalists to cross to the Gaza haven, but it is against the law to allow Arab journalists to cross the borders to investigate or offer emotional support. It seems it is legal to stand on the borders and watch a full nation being killed and not only to stand idly doing nothing, but also to punish those who intend to help.
Share this:
Tags:"Food Channel", Egyptian Government, Gaza, Israeli army, journalist Majdi Hussein, Rafah crossing point, trade, trial
Posted in Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »