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The European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia on Tuesday over its investigation into murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya and its treatment of the protest group Pussy Riot in two separate judgments.
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In the case of Politkovskaya, who was gunned down in Moscow in 2006, the court ruled that Russia "had failed to take adequate investigatory steps to find the person or persons who had commissioned the murder."
The judges at the court in Strasbourg found that Russian investigators should have explored possibilities that the crime was ordered by "agents from Russia's FSB domestic secret service or of the administration of the Chechen Republic."
The case was filed at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) by Politkovskaya's family, who claimed Russia had not carried out a proper investigation despite the conviction of five men over the killing. The court ordered Russia to pay a total of US$23,500 to the four family members — Politkovskaya's mother, sister and two children.
A separate case involved three Pussy Riot members who were arrested in 2012 for performing an anti-Putin protest song in a central Moscow church. The court concluded that Russia had violated their human rights by subjecting them to degrading treatment, not providing a fair trial and not allowing them freedom of expression.
The seven judges hearing the case found that the three members had been subjected to "overcrowded conditions" in their transportation to their trial and had suffered "humiliation" by being permanently exposed in a glass dock. Their detention pending trial for five months was also unjustified in the court's view, with prosecutors giving what the court judged to be "stereotyped reasons" for keeping them behind bars.
Finally, the three protesters had been deprived of a fair trial because they could not communicate with their lawyers and their prison sentences had been "exceptionally severe."
Three of the group's members were convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" at a trial that attracted global media attention and drew protests from rights groups.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were released after serving one year and nine months of their two-year sentences. The other convicted member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was imprisoned for seven months, the court said. Alyokhina revealed last October in an interview to the press that she was dating far-right leader Dmitry Enteo, from the movement "God's Will."
The European court ordered Russia to pay damages of 16,000 euros each to Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina, and 5,000 euros to Samutsevich, as well as 11,760 euros for their legal expenses.
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