MOSCOW -- Russian human rights activists say they support officials' decision to consider all leads in the 2009 killing in Chechnya of rights defender Natalya Estemirova, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.
The Russian Prosecutor-General Office's Investigative Committee announced earlier that its chief, Aleksandr Bastrykin, ordered investigators to take into account all versions of the murder and leads -- including ones proposed by the Memorial Human Rights Center -- while investigating the case.
Originally the investigative committee insisted that one of the wanted separatist field commanders in Chechnya, Alkhazur Bashaev, was the main suspect in Estemirova's murder.
While working for the Memorial Human Rights Center in Grozny, Estemirova was abducted by unknown men and found shot dead in neighboring Ingushetia on July 15, 2009.
Oleg Orlov, chief of the Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center, said on July 21 that despite the fact that a lot of evidence has been lost, it is still possible to find Estemirova's killers.
He said he does not exclude that Bastrykin's decision to consider all possible leads was made because a special Memorial report on Estemirova's case was recently given to President Dmitry Medvedev.
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