Putin faces 'murderer' taunt as journalist is buried
By Hannah Cleaver in Berlin and Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
(Filed: 11/10/2006)
Mourners gather around the coffin of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya before her burial in Moscow
Angry protesters greeted Vladimir Putin as he flew into Germany yesterday for a two-day official visit that has been overshadowed by the weekend murder of his most prominent critic in the Russian media.
Arriving in Dresden, the city where he served as a KGB spy in the 1980s, the Russian president was heckled by 2,000 demonstrators furious over the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead by a gunman outside her home on Saturday afternoon.
As Mr Putin got out of his limousine, one man shouted: "You're a murderer, you're not welcome here." The killing of Mrs Politkovskaya, who was internationally admired for her exposes of Russian military atrocities in Chechnya, forced the Russian leader onto the defensive during a trip that was meant to focus on energy and growing economic ties with Germany.
Two hours after the reporter was buried at an emotional funeral in Moscow, Mr Putin publicly acknowledged her death for the first time at a joint press conference with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
Though he described the murder as "a dreadful and unacceptable crime", Mr Putin sought to reject allegations of possible Kremlin involvement in it by downplaying the significance of Mrs Politkovskaya's career....
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