The pattern isn't hard to detect: People who have harsh words for Vladimir Putin, or the conduct of the Chechen wars,  do not prosper.

Karinna Moskalenko, who is representing the late Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who had written several books chronicling Putin's corruption and failed Chechen wars- and was shot on Putin's birthday for her pains- was herself poisoned in Strasbourg this week, and in an imaginative manner- by ten highly toxic mercury pellets placed in the family car.

Ms. Moskalenko spends much of her time in Strasbourg, in eastern France, pursuing cases at the European Court of Human Rights, according to the radio station. Some of her cases have been on behalf of Chechens complaining of human rights abuses. She has represented Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the jailed oil tycoon. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Ms. Moskalenko's clients included Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion who has become an opposition political leader in Russia, and Mr. Litvinenko, the former K.G.B. officer.

Litvinenko, one may remember, was the victim of the most spectacular assassination in history- he ingested the deadly isotope polonium-210 (apparently, the Russians were intent on showing the West they could do real damage with their loose nukes if they wished). Litvinenko was a naturalized British citizen, and was assassinated in London.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/world/europe/16russia.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin