Food, Energy, Global Warming. But What About Murder?

Oil and food prices are going through the roof, and the world isn't getting any cooler, so it's appropriate that these topics dominate the talk among the leaders of the world's main economies meeting in Japan right now. But British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has another issue on his mind, and that's murder.

Marina Litvinenko says she's received word that, when Brown meets with Russian leader Dmitri Medvedev, he'll probably bring up the 2006 murder of her husband, KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with polonium-210, a rare nuclear isotope. Britain has charged a member of the Russian Duma, Andrei Lugovoi, with murder, and has so far unsuccessfully sought his extradition for trial.

It seems highly unlikely that Medvedev will reverse the position taken by his predecessor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who says the British failed to provide sufficient evidence backing up the charges, and that furthermore Russia's constitution bars extradition of its citizens.

Though his style seems more accommodating than Putin's, and Medvedev says he's willing to compromise on disputes with Britain if Gordon will, too, Medvedev hasn't shifted away from any of Putin's main policies.

Yet one wonders whether, in this case, he's prepared to embrace one of his predecessor's main personal idiosyncracies, which has been a strange willingness to be seen as a killer, or a harborer of them.

The answer will help inform the G-8 leaders -- and the next American president – how to deal with oil-rich Russia as it likely grows stronger in the years ahead.

At issue is a series of unsolved murders that weigh over Putin's eight-year rule. Together, they have revealed Putin to be the latest in a long line of Russian dictators whose common thread is an indifference toward the lives of their people.

Putin wishes Russia to be regarded as a rightful member of G-8, the group of industrialized nations that includes the United States, western Europe and Japan. But the Kremlin's record of behavior toward its citizens – an attitude of bespredel, or anything goes, in perceived defense of the state – sets Russia apart from the group's other members. Only in Russia is there a line that, when crossed, can subject its violator to murder, while leaving the culprit unpunished and free to kill again.

Earlier this month, Medvedev told a Berlin audience that Russia would prosecute "to the end" all cases of slain journalists, who make up many of the most high-profile victims. One hopes he was sincere, but skepticism is warranted since Putin promised similarly yet did not deliver.

One of the cases is that of New York-born Paul Klebnikov, the 43-year-old editor of Forbes magazine's Russia edition. Klebnikov, a descendant of Czarist-era Russian nobility, was best known for a ground-breaking investigation of billionaire Boris Berezovsky. But in 2004, gunmen killed him outside his Moscow office.

Police used telephone records to quickly identify two suspects. The defendants, Chechens named Kazbek Dukuzov and Musa Vakhaev, were acquitted in May 2006, but then re-charged, which is permitted under Russia's justice system. Whatever queasiness a westerner might have with double jeopardy, at that point senior Russian officials seemed to be watching. But since then the case has languished. Crucially, police say they can't find Dukuzov to try him again.

In recent weeks, equally troubling news emerged in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, an internationally known investigative reporter who was shot execution-style in 2006 in her Moscow apartment building. Prosecutors charged three men, but said nothing about the actual alleged killer, Rustam Makhmudov, a brother of two of the defendants. And, as in Klebnikov's case, the identity of the mastermind remains a public mystery.

Doubts about the official investigations in the Klebnikov and Politkovskaya cases don't start at the precinct level – the police work in both seemed first-rate. But there are suspicions of political interference. Some of the skepticism was fueled by Putin, who famously remarked after the Politkovskaya slaying that it was a pity but that her "influence on the country's political life . . . was minimal."

The most notorious murder is that of Litvinenko. The United Kingdom charged Andrei Lugovoi, a former Russian intelligence agent, and sought his extradition from Russia. Putin could have acquitted himself and Russia as a whole by cooperating with Britain. Instead, he rejected the request, and last December, Lugovoi won election to the Duma, thereby gaining immunity from prosecution within Russia while a wanted man in Europe. (Lugovoi denies the charge, and blames British intelligence for the murder.)

There's no evidence that Putin ordered, or even knew in advance about, any of the killings. Yet opinion hardened abroad that he was at the least complicit for creating the atmosphere of impunity for killers in his country. That he seemed unmoved to counter this menacing impression was perhaps intentional -- he may wish to send the message, Don't mess with Russia. But if that is the aim, it is not a formula for the serious relations that Russia claims to seek with the rest of the world.

Putin's authority seems to remain key in Russia. Yet, as Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama formulate their foreign policies, Medvedev's own attitude toward death should be a pivotal consideration. Whether he genuinely prosecutes killers, or continues the policy of bespredel, will speak volumes on whether to embrace Russia, or treat it from a distance.

Photo: World Economic Forum
Rights: Creative Commons