'Gunman' held over murder of Russian journalist

The Russian authorities today announced the arrest of a suspected gunman in the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Rustam Makhmudov, 37, was reportedly captured at his parents' home in Chechnya said Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee.

Politkovskaya was renowned for her reports on violence and human rights violations in Chechnya and other regions of the Russian Caucasus. She was shot dead aged 48 outside her Moscow apartment building in 2006. At the time she was working for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

Makhmudov's brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim, have been accused of acting as drivers in the murder and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov of providing logistical support. All three men were tried and acquitted in 2009 but Russia's supreme court ordered them to be retried. Rustam Makhmudov was on the run during his brothers' first trial.