Politkovskaya gets posthumous press award

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya has been posthumously given the 2007 Press Freedom Award. She was picked by U.S. National Endowment for Democracy for promoting press freedom and independent media in Russia.

The award was handed to her colleagues from the Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta where Politkovskaya worked for seven years before she was killed in October last year.

“I present this award to honour her heroism, her passionate commitment to free and open society, and to her undying desire to see Russia as a democratic society,” Tom Lantos, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, declared.

Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead near her Moscow apartment last October.

During the last months of her life, she's thought to have been investigating human rights violations in the Chechen Republic.

Her former colleagues have suggested her activities in this area could be connected to her death.

Ten people, including former police and Federal Security Service officers, have been held over the murder.

The Prosecutor General claims the murder was most probably ordered from outside the country.