Russian prosecutors have charged a Chechen former government official as an accomplice to the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

 

Shamil Burayev, a former senior official in the Achkhoi-Martan region in Chechnya, denies any involvement in the killing, his lawyer said.

"Burayev said he has nothing to do with this crime. He is determined to prove it and to defend his honest name," Pyotr Kasakov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

 

Politkovskaya, a critic of the Russian government, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building last October.

Her murder provoked international condemnation and critics accused Moscow of failing to protect freedom of speech.

 

 

Politkovskaya was active in exposing abuses by security forces in Chechnya and prosecutors said her murder could be linked to her reporting.

 

She was the 13th journalist killed in a contract-style killing in Russia since Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, took office in 2000, the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists said.

 

Nobody has been convicted in any of the cases.

 

 

Putin said last December that everything possible was being done to find and punish her killers.

"The best professionals in Russia's law enforcement are investigating this crime and we already have certain results," he said.