Lom-Ali Gaitukaev, the Chechen gangster sentenced to life in prison for organizing the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, died on Tuesday, representatives of the Federal Penitentiary Service told the news agency RIA Novosti, without specifying the cause of death.
Gaitukaev’s lawyer told the website Mediazona that his client was recently hospitalized with liver disease.
Anna Politkovskaya was killed on October 7, 2006, in the entrance to her apartment building. Gaitukaev was convicted of orchestrating the murder. Other figures in the case were his nephews, Rustam, Dzhabrail, and Ibragim Makhmudov, former police officer Sergey Khadzhikurbanov, and former Moscow traffic cop Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov. Prosecutors say Rustam Makhmudov is the man who directly carried out the killing.
Politkovskaya’s murder case was heard twice. The suspects were acquitted in 2009, but Russia’s Supreme Court later overturned this verdict, and a retrial in 2014 resulted in life sentences for Gaitukaev and Rustam Makhmudov, as well as long prison terms for the remaining defendants.
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