7 convicted in journalist's murder

A court has convicted seven men in the 2000 murder of journalist Igor Domnikov _ one of more than a dozen killed during President Vladimir Putin's years in power.

The Domnikov case represented the first time suspects were prosecuted in a journalist's killing since Putin became president in 2000.

Domnikov, who wrote extensively on official corruption for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, died two months after being repeatedly hit in the head with a hammer outside his Moscow apartment building.

On Wednesday, a court in the city of Kazan sentenced four men to life in prison, and three others to prison terms ranging from 18 to 25 years after finding them guilty of killing 23 men, including Domnikov, and of eight kidnappings, regional court official Enza Galiulina said.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 14 journalists have been killed since 2000 in reprisal for their reporting. Freedom of press has shrunk notably under Putin, with the government establishing control over all major television channels.

In October, Novaya Gazeta's prominent investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, a persistent critic of Putin, was gunned down in Moscow.

CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said the verdict in Domnikov's case was "a groundbreaking step in the fight against impunity in the killing of journalists."

Simon called on Russian authorities "to go further" and find and prosecute the mastermind of Domnikov's murder.

The convicted gang's leader Eduard Tagiryanov, who was sentenced to life, told the court that Domnikov's killing had been ordered by former deputy governor of western Lipetsk region Sergei Dorovsky for a series of critical articles on his policies, said Andrei Lipsky, the deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta.

Dorovsky has denied involvement and has never been charged.

Lipsky said the mastermind was unlikely to be prosecuted because he is "a person with serious financial levers."

Earlier this week, the chief prosecutor announced the arrests of 10 suspects in Politkovskaya's killing, and said it was ordered by someone outside the country to discredit Putin and destabilize Russia.

That assertion _ which echoed statements by Putin in the days following the killing _ met with skepticism from Kremlin critics and Politkovskaya's former colleagues. Her critical reporting about the government, and particularly its war in Chechnya, earned her many enemies at home.

Russian media reported Thursday that prosecutors have released two of the people originally named as suspects, and that a court official said a third is no longer linked to the case.