Charges have been brought against former Moscow policeman Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov in the 2006 killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of the Russian government, was shot by an assailant while in the elevator of her Moscow flat. She had sparked official anger through her investigative work, which focused on the war in Chechnya, and human rights abuses.

According to The Moscow Times, Pavlyuchenkov has been accused of illegally tracking Politkovskaya and using the information in the plot to kill her. Pavlyuchenkov is also alleged to have acquired the weapon and ammunition used in the murder. The charges include ‘murder for hire’ by a group and illegal weapons trafficking.

Pavlyuchenkov has been cooperating with authorities since August 2011. For his role as an informant, he hopes to receive a lenient sentence, his lawyer has stated.

According to a colleague at Novaya Gazeta, Politkovskaya’s former employer, she had been threatened with death many times and in 2004 was believed to have been poisoned by Russian secret police. Politkovskaya herself said she’d received threats of rape and had once faced a mock execution after being detained by the military.

In 2008, 10 men were arrested, many with associations to the secret police, in connection with Politkovskaya’s death. Three were tried the following year, but were acquitted.

On 7 December 2006, on the occasion of the two-month commemoration of her death, IPI honoured Anna Politkovskaya by posthumously naming her one of its World Press Freedom Heroes.