Russians Arrest 10 in Killing of Reporter

By: Authorities have arrested 10 people in the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and they soon will be charged, Russia's chief prosecutor said Monday.

``We have made serious progress in this case,'' Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika told President Vladimir Putin in televised remarks. ``As of today, 10 people have been arrested, and literally in the nearest future they will be charged with the commission of this grave crime.''

Chaika did not identify those arrested.

Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter and critic of Putin, was fatally shot in her Moscow apartment building last October in a killing that caused an international outcry and compounded concern about the safety of journalists in Russia.

Putin sparked outrage abroad when he seemed to dismiss Politkovskaya shortly after her killing, saying she her influence on Russian political life was ``very minor.''

A spokeswoman for the Moscow City Court, Anna Usacheva, said the court had approved the arrests of eight suspects in Politkovskaya's killing on Friday. That timing suggests they were detained fairly recently. There was no immediate explanation for the different numbers.

Politkovskaya had written passionately and critically about abuses by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in Chechnya.

There had been no word of specific progress in the case for months. In April, the journalists' advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said there appeared to have been no progress in the investigation, and called for an international commission or parliamentary inquiry if authorities produced no concrete and conclusive evidence.

The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists said 13 journalists have been killed in contract-style murders since Putin took office in 2000.

Her killing came less than two months before the radiation poisoning death in London of Kremlin critic and former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko. On his deathbed, Litvinenko blamed Putin for his poisoning - an allegation that the Kremlin denied. He also accused Russian authorities of being behind the killing of Politkovskaya.

Days after Politkovskaya's death, Putin suggested her killing could have been plotted by Kremlin foes abroad to harm Russia's image, and his allies have made similar remarks about Litvinenko's death. In November, Chaika said a possible foreign connection was among several theories being investigated in the murder of Politkovskaya.

Much speculation about the slaying has focused on the Kremlin-backed president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, a strongman whose forces human rights groups have accused of being behind severe abuses of civilians in the war-scarred region. Kadyrov has denied any involvement.