Justice for Anna and Dawit -- is it Really too much to Ask?

Two cases to make you weep. The Russians promised they would do everything to nail the killers of Anna Politkovskaya. They failed abysmally. The recent trial has been chaotic and confused. The jury unanimously threw out evidence, much of it contradictory, against four men accused of killing a courageous investigative reporter who accused Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin mafia of appalling human rights abuse in Checnya.

Politkovskaya was shot dead at 4pm on 7 October 2006. I was called by a friend in Russia an hour later. He told me she had been gunned down as she lugged her shopping bags up to her flat in a Moscow apartment block. Ever since that day I and others have waited patiently for justice for Anna and her family.

Prosecutors said the defendants were part of a criminal gang, but they have never identified who ordered the assassination. Everyone with half a brain understands that the orders came from a senior figure in Russian politics and probably linked to Ramzan Kadyrov, the hoodlum Chechen president who was a target of Politkovskaya's trenchant reporting.

Politkovskaya's supporters say there is no doubt that her murder has been covered up. Some of the crucial evidence in the case mysteriously disappeared. Investigators found computer drives and SIM cards gone from the computers and telephones of key suspects. Their telephone records days before the murder are missing.

The journalists' union say it is a shameful affair. Given the Kremlin's record the suggestion of official manipulation is well founded. The judge himself tried to keep media out of the trial (probably under instructions from elsewhere) and the investigation was subject to infighting between rival Kremlin agencies. Ten original suspects were mysteriously reduced to four.

At the same time Politkovskaya's newspaper Novaya Gazeta carried out its own investigation. Its editor, Dimitry Muratov, says he knows who ordered the killing, but refuses to go public because of lack of proof.

I have no doubt. I was a speaker at a meeting in the Frontline Club a few weeks after the shooting when Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer stood up and denounced Vladimir Putin as the man responsible for Anna's death. Three weeks later he was killed himself, succumbing to poisoning from a radio-active substance likely to have come from a Russian state-controlled plant.

All of this is proof enough that notions of democracy and respect for human rights are wilfully ignored at the highest levels in modern Russia. That may be so, but for many of us the campaign for justice in the case of Anna Politkovskaya is far from over.

Equally distressing is the news that Dawit Isaak, the journalist held for seven years without charge or trial in the twilight world of Eritrea, is in failing health. This brave young man was jailed by the bullies and thugs who run this sad state because he edited a newspaper calling for justice, decency and reform. He has suffered from high blood pressure, is thought to have been tortured and now, according to his family, has been diagnosed with diabetes, raising fears that his life is in danger.

Today I wrote to Carl Bildt, Foreign Minister of Sweden, because Dawit has taken Swedish nationality and asked him to intervene with the rulers of this one-party state, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice. In a country where private newspapers have been shut down and any journalists who criticise the president or his regime are immediately put into prison it is difficult to see where there is any justice or democracy. So far at least four journalists have died in detention.

We don't want Dawit Isaak to be another victim, so we are trying to get his release on humanitarian grounds. Fingers crossed and watch this space.