The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus

Rights workers skeptical that Estemirova killers will be brought to justice

On Thursday, February 24, the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti reported that authorities had solved the murder of Natalya Estemirova, a prominent rights worker with Human Rights Center Memorial. She was abducted in Chechnya in July, 2009 and later found dead in neighboring Ingushetia. Citing anonymous sources from the law enforcement agencies, the article stated that investigators had identified the gunman and were in the process of locating his whereabouts, but had yet to identify the person who ordered Estemirova’s assassination.

However, authorities refused to release the identity of the gunman or any other details about the murder case, making Estemirova’s colleagues question whether the actual killers will ever be brought to justice. Russian rights workers cited the still unsolved murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a colleague of Estemirova and a prominent investigative journalist who was gunned down in Moscow in 2006, to point to the ineffective nature of Russia’s legal system and the dangerous environment that exists for journalists and rights workers in Russia today.

Estemirova’s murder sent shockwaves throughout Russia’s human rights community and caused widespread condemnation from foreign governments and international organizations. The director of Memorial, Oleg Orlov, publicly accused the Kremlin-appointed Chechen president, Ramzan Kadyrov, of being personally accountable for Estemirova’s murder. Kadyrov dismissed the accusations leveled against him stating that he had “no need to kill a woman that no one cared about.”

The 33-year-old Ramzan Kadyrov, an ex-rebel turned Kremlin loyalist, is accused of torture, abductions and extrajudicial execution by numerous international rights groups. Shortly before her death, Estemirova had done extensive research for a report published by Human Rights Watch. The report documented the illegal practice of burning houses belonging to families of alleged militants by members of Kadyrov’s private militia (see report).