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Wednesday marked the fourth anniversary of the assassination of State
Duma
Deputy
Galina Starovoitova, who was gunned down in the stairwell of her
apartment
building in
St. Petersburg.
The day of mourning brought tributes from political luminaries and
ordinary
citizens
alike. Relatives and friends of Starovoitova gathered at noon to
attend
a
memorial
service at the Alexander Nevsky monastery, where the murdered deputy
is
buried.
A number of political figures were present, including Irina
Khakamada,
the
vice speaker
of the State Duma and co-leader of the Union of Right Forces (SPS)
party,
and Yevgeny
Makarov, who represented Northwest Region Presidential Representative
Viktor
Cherkesov. Sergei Mironov, the president of the Federation Council,
chose
not to
attend the service, but came to Nikolskoye cemetery, which is located
on
the monastery
grounds, before the service to lay flowers on Starovoitova's grave.
City Hall did not send a representative to the ceremony.
Many ordinary people were in attendance to remember a politician who
was
considered
a dedicated advocate of democracy and human rights, attending the
service
or laying
flowers or wreaths on her grave.
In the evening, Armenian folk-music artist Karo Chalikyan gave a
concert
in
her memory
at the Hermitage Theater. Starovoitova was a strong supporter of the
Armenian quest
for independence and, in 1989, was elected to represent Armenia in
the
Soviet
Parliament.
Though then-President Boris Yeltsin promised that the case would be
solved
quickly
and urged the head of the Interior Ministry and FSB at the time,
Vladimir
Putin, to
oversee the investigation personally, the last four years have
yielded
little in the way of
concrete results.
The St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast administration of the Federal
Security Service
(FSB), which is leading the investigation, said on Nov. 6 that it had
arrested and
charged six men involved in the murder, providing some hope that the
case
might be
solved. Many politicians, however, received the news with a degree of
skepticism,
saying that suspects had been arrested in the past, but it led to
nothing.
Despite the recent arrests, investigators have refused to release any
further information
or to identify those who have been charged, saying that it would
hinder
their
investigation.
"We are currently carrying out a series of investigations and
operations
that are aimed
at documenting the criminal activities of those charged, as well as
establishing the
whereabouts of individuals still being sought by the government," a
spokesperson from
the press service of the FSB quoted FSB investigators as saying. "We
cannot
release
any more information for the sake of the investigation," the
spokesperson
added.
Interfax reported on Wednesday that, in the past four years, about
3,000
people have
been questioned and 350 witnesses had been asked to file statements
in
relation to the
investigation.
"Her murder ranks among the most important political crimes in Russia
in
the past 12
years," Grigory Yavlinsky, the head of the Yabloko party, was
reported
by
Interfax as
saying on Tuesday. "And, like all political crimes, it has yet to be
solved. This is an
extremely dangerous and telling tendency."
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