Putin's true colors on display. Why isn't this being denounced in the US? Since when is murdering those who expose your crimes an acceptable behavior for a 'democratic' leader?MOSCOW-- Hundreds of ordinary Russians, journalists and Western diplomats Tuesday filed past an open casket to pay their respects to slain reporter Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent Kremlin critic whose contract-style killing triggered international outrage.
But no high-ranking government officials attended the funeral of the award-winning journalist, who made her name fearlessly exposing abductions and torture in the war in Chechnya.
"The authorities are cowards. Why didn't they come? Are they afraid even of a dead Politkovskaya?" asks Boris Nemtsov, a prominent 1990s reformer who served as deputy prime minister under former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Politkovskaya, 48, was gunned down in her apartment building Saturday. The killing threw a new spotlight on the risks faced by journalists who criticize Russian authorities and dig deep to expose abuses.
At home and abroad, her slaying drew widespread concern about dwindling media freedom in Russia since President Vladimir Putin came to power nearly seven years ago and calls for authorities to find and punish her killers. Prosecutors have said she was probably killed because of her journalistic work, but there are no immediate leads.
More than 1,000 mourners who had gathered under the drizzle filed in slow procession past the open casket where Politkovskaya lay in a funeral hall on the outskirts of Moscow, her forehead covered with a white ribbon according to Russian Orthodox tradition.
They placed flowers, mostly roses and carnations, around the coffin, while others held thin yellow prayer candles. Many wept.
"Anya lived and died a hero," said veteran human rights campaigner Lyudmila Alexeyeva. "She couldn't bear seeing how people suffer, how they're in trouble, and that's why she rushed to their help as if she were the most powerful person in the world, not waiting for other help to arrive."
U.S. Ambassador William Burns attended the ceremony.
"I hope that this tragic death will lead to greater respect for freedom of speech, for the importance of speaking the truth and achieving fairness and truth," Burns told the mourners.
Putin issued a brief statement after a conversation with U.S. President George W. Bush promising an "objective investigation" into Politkovskaya's killing, three days after her death, but he has not spoken publicly about the crime.
Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika has taken personal charge of the investigation, but Politkovskaya's colleagues have expressed doubts her slaying will be solved. Her newspaper has pledged to conduct an independent investigation and offered a nearly million-dollar reward for information that would help solve the crime.
The family of Paul Klebnikov, a U.S. journalist whose 2004 slaying in Moscow remains unresolved, said Politkovskaya's death sent yet another worrying signal.
"Who's next?" Klebnikov's widow, Musa asked in a statement. "Without journalists such as Anna Politkovskaya and Paul Klebnikov, as well as many others who say truths some find uncomfortable - you cannot build civil society in Russia."
Russia is the third-most deadly country for journalists, after Iraq and Algeria, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which says Politkovskaya was at least the 43rd reporter killed for her work in Russia since 1993.
A fierce critic of the wars in the rebellious province of Chechnya, Politkovskaya reported on abuses by forces of the Russian military and Moscow-backed government. Colleagues said she had been working on a story about torture and abductions in Chechnya, abuses she blamed on Moscow-backed Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov.
In a newspaper interview published Monday, Kadyrov denied any link to Chechnya in the killing.
Politkovskaya's colleagues described her as a brave reporter and a courageous woman who would venture into war-shattered Chechen villages not just to conduct investigations for her stories but also to help ordinary people. At times she was in such danger that people tried to protect her by taking her from village to village in a car trunk, said her closest collaborator at the paper, Vyacheslav Izmailov.