A former senior Russian police officer was detained on Tuesday in connection with the 2006 murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the editor-in-chief of the "Novaya Gazeta" said.

      Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Anna Politkovskaya worked for, said that the suspect is ex-lieutenent colonel Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov. He used to be a witness in Politkovskaya’s case, but now he is suspected of organizing the shooting of Politkovskaya and supplying the killer with a weapon. Pavlyuchenkov was invited to a police station on Tuesday for questioning, where he was later taken into custody.
       

      “Investigators believe that Pavlyuchenkov received an order from an unidentified person to organize Politkovskaya’ s murder for a monetary reward. He accepted the offer and organized a crime group, which included the Makhmudov brothers,” Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told the press.

      Politkovskaya, a fierce Kremlin critic, was shot dead in her apartment block more than four years ago. 

      Ruslan Makhmudov, the main suspect in the case was detained in Chechnya in May, 2011. "Investigators gathered enough evidence to prove his guilt," Markin told RIA Novosti. 

Sources: ITAR-TASS RIA Novosti