The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has backed furious Russian journalists in their response to the failure of the Russian judicial system to prosecute the killers of Anna Politkovskaya following the acquittal of all three defendants at her trial earlier today.

"We understand the anger and consternation of Russian journalists," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. "Russian leaders promised that the murder of Anna Politkovskaya would be avenged, but a combination of shameful incompetence and official complacency have failed to deliver justice to the Polikovskaya family and to her colleagues.

"Anna's killers remain at large as do the high-ranking people who ordered her assassination. It is shocking evidence that impunity still reigns in Russia where journalists live and work in perilous conditions."

Politkovskaya was gunned down outside her flat in October 2006. She was a prominent journalist for the Novaya Gazeta and a specialist in exposing human rights violations who voiced criticism of Kremlin policy in Chechnya. Earlier this month Anastasia Baburova, who also worked for the Novaya Gazeta, was murdered alongside human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov by a gunman in central Moscow.

Vsevolod Bogdanov, President of the Russian Union of Journalists, an IFJ affiliate, expressed his own profound sense of shame over the Politkovskaya trial and the failure of the Russian judicial system.

"Sadly, we have travelled far from the euphoric times of the early 1990s when the public talked so much about the freedom of speech and when media were described as the 'fourth branch of power'," he said. "What has happened in this case is a shame to the authorities."

The verdict comes as the IFJ and the RUJ, together with the Glasnost Defence Foundation and the Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations, are finalising an investigation into the crisis of impunity in Russia where up to 200 journalists have died in unexplained circumstances since 1993 and scores of reporters have been targeted. While occasional journalists' deaths have been prosecuted in recent years, the IFJ says the Russian judicial system remains incapable of delivering justice for many journalists killed at the hands of gangsters or corrupt officials. "It's time to end this culture of impunity," said White.

For more information contact the IFJ at             +32 2 235 2207       

The IFJ represents over 600,000 journalists in 123 countries worldwide