Former police officer held over Politkovskaya murder

A former senior Russian police officer was detained on Tuesday in connection with the 2006 murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the editor of the paper she worked for said. “Ex-lieutenant colonel Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov was detained,” during questioning by investigators, Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov said. He is suspected of organizing the shooting of Politkovskaya and supplying the killer with a weapon, Tuesday’s edition of the opposition Novaya Gazeta paper said. Politkovskaya, a fierce Kremlin critic, was shot dead in her apartment block more than four years ago. The main suspect in the case was detained in Chechnya in May, 2011.