Reporters at Russian Paper Where Slain Journalist Worked Threatened

By: Two reporters at an independent Russian newspaper that has been highly critical of Kremlin policies in Chechnya received death threats last week, editors said Monday.

The threats against the Novaya Gazeta reporters came weeks after one of the paper's most prominent reporters, Anna Politkovskaya, was gunned down in her Moscow apartment building.

In a statement posted on its Web site, the paper's editors said the threats were made on Friday to two unnamed employees in connection with an article about problems in Russia's troubled North Caucasus and another article on Politkovskaya's murder. One of the reporters also received a threatening mobile phone text message, the paper said.

"We are communicating this of course but we would prefer not to comment on the rest of it, just because it's necessary to protect the security of our employees and because of the ongoing investigation," deputy editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov said in comments to Ekho Moskvy radio.

Police officials could not be immediately reached for comment on the report.

Novaya Gazeta has specialized in investigative reporting, especially in the area of government corruption, and has been highly critical of the Kremlin's policies in Chechnya and other restive southern regions. It has suffered adverse rulings in several libel suits in recent years.

Politkovskaya, who exposed killings, torture and other abuses against civilians in Chechnya, was gunned down in an apparent contract killing in her apartment building in Moscow on Oct. 7. The gunmen have not been found and her murder set off a chorus of protest from foreign governments and international organizations.

Former Russian spy and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London last week, told police he believed he was poisoned while investigating the slaying of Politkovskaya. Litvinenko died after falling ill from what doctors said was poisoning by the radioactive element polonium-210.

In June, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announced that he and a business partner had bought 49 percent of shares in the paper, which has a circulation of 171,500 in Moscow and 513,000 in Russia's regions, according to editors.