NGO says Russia probes Chechnya link to slain reporter

MOSCOW, Jan 23 (Reuters) A journalists' rights group said today Russian prosecutors investigating the murder of crusading reporter Anna Politkovskaya had opened a criminal inquiry into police officials in Chechnya, but the Foreign Ministry denied the report.

Politkovskaya, shot dead outside her home in October, had been strongly critical of Kremlin policy in Chechnya, where she alleged officials used abduction and torture in their campaign against separatist insurgents.

Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said he was told of the Chechen line of inquiry at a meeting with a foreign ministry deputy spokesman yesterday to discuss the murder of journalists in Russia.

''...the Prosecutor-General's office recently informed the foreign ministry that it has opened a criminal investigation into several police officials in Chechnya who may be behind the killing of Anna Politkovskaya,'' Simon told a news conference.

The CPJ quoted the Russian officials as saying that this was one of several theories being examined by investigators.

The Foreign Ministry subsequently denied the remarks.

''The claim...absolutely doesn't correspond to reality,'' it said in a statement posted on its website www.mid.ru.

It said officials had told the CPJ that ''the Prosecutor- General's office is working on a number of theories about this murder, including one linked to her professional activity as a journalist.'' The Prosecutor-General's office declined further comment.

CPJ Europe and Central Asia programme coordinator Nina Ognianova told Reuters the group stood by its version of events.

WORLDWIDE CONDEMNATION The New York-based CPJ says 13 journalists have been killed in contract-style hits since President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000. It describes Russia as the third most dangerous country for journalists behind Iraq and Algeria.

Nobody has been successfully prosecuted for any of the 13 killings and this ''record of impunity has a very negative effect on news coverage in Russia'', Simon told the news conference.

''It stops journalists in their tracks when they pursue independent newsgathering''.

The murder of Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of Putin, drew worldwide condemnation.

German president Angela Merkel raised the Politkovskaya murder investigation with Putin during a meeting last weekend and was told that Russian justice was working ''very intensively'' but that there were no results so far.

During its visit, the CPJ delegation delivered to the chairman of the presidential human rights council, Ella Pamfilova, more than 400 signed postcards bearing photographs of murdered journalists and urging Putin to stop the killing.

Victims included Paul Klebnikov, editor of Forbes Russia, who was shot as he left his office and Igor Domnikov, a reporter from the same newspaper as Politkovskaya, who was bludgeoned to death with a hammer.

REUTERS AB PM1826