The Guardian reports
A former Russian detective who was convicted for his role in the 2006 killing of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya has been pardoned by President Vladimir Putin after fighting in Ukraine, his lawyer has said.
Sergei Khadzhikurbanov was given a 20-year prison sentence in 2014 for his role in organising the murder of Politkovskaya, a prominent reporter at the liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta who was shot dead in 2006 in the lift of her Moscow apartment block.
Khadzhikurbanov’s lawyer, Alexei Mikhalchik, told Russian media on Tuesday that his client received a presidential pardon after completing a six-month military contract in Ukraine and had since remained in the armed forces.
Mikhalchik did not specify when Khadzhikurbanov signed up to fight in Ukraine or whether his client initially joined Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group, a paramilitary unit which first started to recruit prisoners from jail.
“Khadzhikurbanov participated in [the war in Ukraine] as a prisoner under his first contract,” he was quoted by news channel RBC as saying. “He was then pardoned and now participates in [the war in Ukraine] as a military man having signed a [second] contract with the defence ministry,” the lawyer added.
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