MOSCOW – A human-rights lawyer who unsuccessfully fought the early release of a Russian colonel convicted of murdering a Chechen woman was shot dead on a Moscow street Monday, law enforcement authorities said.
A journalist also was wounded in the attack, according to the deputy editor of a Moscow newspaper.
The daylight slaying of Stanislav Markelov sparked anger and grief among Russia's beleaguered rights activists and Chechens already upset by the release last week of Col. Yuri Budanov.
"This is a horrible, frightening crime," said Tatyana Lokshina of Human Rights Watch. She compared it to the 2006 slaying of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya — a client of Markelov's who also fought rights abuses in Chechnya and around Russia.
Markelov, 34, was gunned down in central Moscow near a building where he had just held a news conference, about a kilometer (a half-mile) from the Kremlin, said Viktoria Tsyplenkova, a spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee of the Moscow prosecutor's office.
Markelov had told reporters he was considering file an international court appeal against the early release of Budanov, who was convicted in 2003 and sentenced to 10 years — including time served — for strangling 18-year-old Heda Kungayeva in 2000. He admitted to killing her, saying he believed she was a Chechen insurgent sniper. Markelov represented her family.
A deputy editor of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Andrei Lipsky, said freelancer Anastasia Baburova, who had written for the paper, was shot when she tried to intervene after Markelov was hit. She was taken to a hospital and Lipsky said he did not know her condition.
Budanov was freed last week with more than a year left on his murder sentence. His case was closely watched as a test of authorities' determination punish rights abuses in Chechnya.
The release drew criticism from rights activists and lawyers, who pointed out that inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes but considered Kremlin foes — such as former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky — have been refused early release.
Markelov also had represented activists who have battled abuses by Russia's military, and a Chechen woman who was a victim in a 2002 hostage-taking attack on a Moscow theater.
"He was always on the front line," said Alexander Cherkasov of the human rights organization Memorial.
Cherkasov said Markelov was instrumental in another case involving alleged atrocities by the Russian military in Chechnya — the 2005 conviction of a police officer, Sergei Lapin, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for the torture and "disappearance" of a young Chechen man.
Markelov spent months trying to persuade authorities to prosecute Lapin for allegedly threatening Politkovskaya's life. On April 16, 2004, Markelov was riding home on the Moscow subway when five young men accosted him and beat him unconscious, he told a journalist.
He said one of his attackers shouted "You asked for this!" and "No more speeches for you, then!"
When he awoke, his cell phone and papers relating to the Politkovskaya case were gone, though his wallet and about $50 worth of Russian rubles were not touched. When he tried to report the attack, he said, police accused him of faking his injuries.
A Chechen parliament deputy, Isa Khadzhimuratov, said he believes Markelov's killing was likely connected to the Budanov case.
One of Markelov's last clients was Mokhamadsalakh Masayev, who alleged in 2006 he was held in a secret prison in Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's home village and subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. Masayev was abducted in Chechnya last August, his whereabouts remain unknown.
"For victims of human rights abuses in Chechnya he was a hero," Lokshina said.
Markelov also represented the victims of a 2004 police sweep in Ural Mountains city of Blagoveshchensk, where hundreds of residents were beaten by police. He has defended anti-fascist movements and has been threatened by nationalist groups as a result, according to Russian media and activists on the Internet.
Since late 1990s, the Federal Security Service has often tried to interrogate him as a witness to prevent him from participating in trials as a lawyer, Cherkasov said.
"When one needed a bold journalist, one called Politkovskaya, when one needed a bold lawyer — one called Markelov," said Kremlin critic and rights activist Lev Ponomaryov.
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Associated Press Writers Jim Heintz, Douglas Birch and Steve Gutterman contributed to this report.