Russian prosecutors have charged nine people, including a senior officer in the country’s security service, over the murder of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Vyacheslav Smirnov, an official of the Prosecutor-General’s office, told a Moscow city court that “nine people have been charged in the criminal case”. Interfax news agency reported that Lieutenant-Colonel Pavel Ryaguzov, of the Federal Security Service (FSB), had been charged with abuse of office. Mr Ryaguzov is already in detention on separate abuse charges dating from 2002, according to a spokesman for a military court.

Ms Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, was shot in her Moscow apartment building on the President’s birthday in October last year.

Her death triggered an international outcry, prompting accusations of state involvement in silencing critics and putting heavy pressure on Mr Putin to ensure that the case was solved. The Prosecutor-General, Yuri Chaika, said in August, however, that the killing had been masterminded from abroad by antiKremlin forces trying to discredit Russia.

Mr Ryaguzov was alleged to have passed details of Ms Politkovskaya’s address to another suspect, who supposedly gave them to the killer. He was among ten people arrested in August in connection with the case, five of whom had links to the security services.

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