PYATIGORSK/MOSCOW. May 31 (Interfax) - Rustam Makhmudov, the suspected murderer of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya, was detained in Chechnya's Achkhoi-Martan district on Tuesday morning, a North Caucasus law enforcement source told Interfax.
"Makhmudov was detained in the early morning at one of the addresses in the republic's Achkhoi-Martan district," the source said.
The operation was conducted with "the powerful assistance from various Chechen law enforcement agencies," he said.
The information about Makhmudov's whereabouts was received a while ago.
"Security agencies spent some time eavesdropping on the suspect's telephone conversations. He was detained at the moment when law enforcers were certain Makhmudov could be held alive," the source said.
Very soon the Politkovskaya murder suspect will be moved to Moscow, he said. "Over the next few hours, Makhmudov will be flown to Moscow where he will be questioned as a suspect," the source said.
Meanwhile, the Novaya Gazeta newspaper has denied receiving any formal notice about Makhmudov's arrest.
"We have not yet received any official notification on this matter, but judging by a number of facts obtained from our sources, one may conclude that it really happened," Novaya Gazeta editor Sergei Sokolov told Interfax on Tuesday.
"If he was really detained, then that is certainly a success," he said, commenting on the event.
"The only thing that makes us wonder is how he was able to get back to Russia, if he was on the international wanted list," Sokolov said.
Politkovskaya was shot dead on October 7, 2006 in the stairway of her apartment block in Moscow. Her murder has still not been solved.
Ibragim and Jabrail Makhmudov and former police officer Sergei Khajikurbanov were suspects in the case. The Moscow District Military Court acquitted them in February 2009. It also acquitted former the Federal Security Service officer Pavel Ryaguzov who was unrelated to the murder as such.
Later on the Russian Supreme Court repealed the acquittal and ordered the prosecutors to combine the case with the one of Politkovskaya's killers Rustam Makhmudov and some hitherto unidentified perpetrators and organizers.