- Id
- 35
- Date
- 19/01/2009
- First
- Anastasia
- Surname
- BABUROVA
- Sex/Age
- F, 25
- Incident
- homicide
- Motive
- J
- Place
- street
- Job
- journalist
- Medium
- Federal District Plus
- Moscow
- Street, Town, Region
- Prechistenka Street
- Freelance
- yes
- Local/National
- national, Novaya gazeta
- Other Ties
- anti-fascist activist
- Cause of Death
- murder, shot
- Legal Qualification
- 105 (murder)
- Impunity
- investigation
On 19 January 2009 Anastasia Baburova, a journalist with Novaya gazeta, was shot in the centre of Moscow, together with the lawyer Stanislav Markelov. They were returning from a press conference on Prechistenka Street when a gunman approached Markelov from behind and shot him in the head. Baburova took several steps towards Markelov’s assailant. He turned and also shot her. Markelov was killed on the spot; Baburova died several hours later in hospital.
There were several suggestions as to why Markelov, and Baburova, were attacked. One linked Markelov’s involvement as a lawyer in the case of Mikhail Beketov, chief editor of Khimkinskaya pravda. A second suggestion is that Markelov’s call, issued at the press conference, for the recently paroled ex-colonel Budanov to be sent back to prison was the reason. Some sources say the lawyer was repeatedly threatened with death if he did not leave Budanov alone. A third suggestion was that nationalists had taken revenge for the antifascist activities of Markelov, and Baburova. Among his other activities, Markelov was also the lawyer responsible for Novaya gazeta’s various cases: the Domnikov murder, the cases that arose from Anna Politkovskaya’s various publications ...
Baburova was 25 and a trainee journalist with Novaya gazeta. She had moved from the Crimea to Moscow to study but soon decided that journalism and, in particular, the exposure of neo-fascist and racist violence was her field.
Update, 5 July 2009
The murderer of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova will be caught, announced Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office, at a press conference at the Interfax head office.
Investigators know whom they are looking for, he said, but have not found him yet. The appearance and approximate occupation of the murderer, his contacts and ideology, are known. “The murderer is somewhere here, around,” Bastrykin said and criticized his police colleagues for being too slow.
Markelov had run several widely-reported cases and shortly before his death tried to protest the release of Yury Budanov on parole. Quite often the lawyer represented the interests of anarchist and pacifist movements having problems with the law. He was active against neo-Nazi and fascist groups. One of his clients was Mikhail Beketov, a lawyer in conflict with the authorities in the town of Khimki.