WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- Chechnya's claim that a Russian businessman ordered the murders of a journalist and an ex-spy should be viewed skeptically, according to an advocacy group.
Reporters Without Borders said that claims by Chechnya's acting president, Ramzan Kadyrov, that former Russian politician-turned-businessman Boris Berezovsky ordered the murders of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko "undermine the search for truth."
One reporter at Politkovskaya's newspaper Novaya Gazeta said that if Kadyrov has any inside information on the ongoing investigation, then he should go to the police himself. The Chechen politician said at a press conference that he personally heard that Berezovsky was financing separatists set to destroy Russia.
But journalist Viacheslav Izmayilov said that "at Novaya Gazeta, we have explored several theories with the inspectors in charge of investigating Anna Politkovskaya's murder and all of them are different from this one."
"The men in charge of the Politkovskaya investigation do not believe in this lie, and they are the most honest in men in their force," Izmayilov added.
