The General Investigative Office of the Russian Investigative Committee within the criminal investigation into the killing of a journalist Anna Politkovskaya has detained ex-lieutenant colonel Dmitri Pavlyuchnkov suspected of organization of this crime.

As established by the investigation, Mr. Pavlyuchenkov for a certain sum of money received an order to organize the murder of Ms. Politkovskaya and created a criminal group, consisting of three Makhmudovs brothers and other people. After that, Pavlyuchenkov being at that moment head of the department of 4^th division of the Moscow General Internal Affairs Directorate which carried out external observation ordered his subordinates to watch the journalist in order to find out the way and time of her daily trips. Then Pavlyuchenkov obtained a gun, worked out a plan and gave the tasks to all his accomplices during the preparation and the process of the murder. The information obtained and the gun were handed to the direct killer Rustam Makhmudov and his aiders, who several days before the murder had followed and watched Anna Politkovskaya.

The murder was committed approximately at 4 p.m. on 7 October 2006. On that day Anna Politkovskaya, having parked her car next to the house on Lesnaya street, entered the elevator to get to her apartment. She was shot five times. After that the killer went out from the front door, got into the VAZ 21043 car waiting for him at “Novoslobodskaya” underground station and drove away together with his accomplices.

Today the Investigative Committee is going to file a petition to have Pavlyuchenkov arrested. It should be pointed out that the whole crime was reconstructed by the means of investigation. Apart from this, it should be said that the investigation has information about the supposed contractor of the murder, however it is still too early to reveal this information, the investigation reported.