Stanislav Markelov

In 2015 another member of the BORN nationalis group Ilya Goryachev was sentenced for murder of Markelov.

According to investigators, Tikhonov was the one who committed the murder, while Khasis reported to him, by cell phone, the movements of Markelov and Baburova right before the assault. The motive of the murder was revenge for Markelov's prior work as a lawyer in the interests of Trotskyite activists. The murder suspects were arrested, and were reported to have confessed. In May 2011, Tikhonov was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Khasis was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Markelov was murdered on 19 January 2009 in Moscow.

Markelov was shot to death on 19 January 2009 while leaving a news conference in Moscow less than half a mile from the Kremlin; he was 34. Anastasia Baburova, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta who tried to come to Markelov's assistance, was also shot and killed in the attack.

The President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko sent a telegram to the parents of Anastasia Baburova on 23 January 2009. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev offered his condolences six days later.

Other groups hailed Markelov's killing in Internet chatter, but it is unclear whether they were connected to it. A hate crimes expert, Galina Kozhevnikova, said in February 2009 that she received an e-mailed threat warning her to "get ready" to join Markelov.

In November 2009, Russian authorities declared the end of the criminal investigation. The murder suspects were 29-year-old Nikita Tikhonov and his girlfriend, 24-year-old Yevgenia Khasis, a radical nationalist couple involved with a group called Russky Obraz or Russian Image (Russian: Русский образ ) and associated with the identitarian organization BORN (Battle Organization of Russian Nationalists) (Russian: Боевая организация русских националистов ). Initially, "Russkiy Obraz" was a magazine, set up by Tikhonov and his friend Ilya Goryachev in 2002 as a clone of the radical facist Serbian "Image" (Russian: Сербское "Образ" ) formed by Mladen Obradovic (Russian: Младен Обрадович ), Deacon Boban Milovanovic (Russian: диакон Бобан Милованович ) and Alexander Mishich (Russian: Александр Мишич ). Both were students of history at Moscow State University. According to Tikhonov, the identitarian organization BORN was founded by him and Goryachev in 2007. According to both Khasis and Sergey Smirnov, Russky Obraz was the political roof for BORN similar to Sein Fein's relationship to the Irish Republican Army. According to Khasis, Leonid Simunin was the BORN connection to the Kremlin and the presidential administration through Vladislav Surkov with a siloviki as the retired FSB officer Aleksey Korshunov (Russian: Алексей Коршунов ) another strong supporter of BORN.

FSB director Alexander Bortnikov reported to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that the radical group in question committed a murder on ethnic grounds in September 2009 and was preparing another one.

Markelov was a president of the Russian Rule of Law Institute. He represented Anna Politkovskaya, who was gunned down in Moscow in 2006; Mikhail Beketov, the editor of a pro-opposition newspaper who was severely beaten in November 2008; and many Chechen civilians who had been tortured. He also defended people who were victims of the Moscow theater hostage crisis.

Stanislav Yuryevich Markelov (Russian: Станисла́в Ю́рьевич Марке́лов ; 20 May 1974 – 19 January 2009) was a Russian human rights lawyer. He participated in a number of publicized cases, including those of left-wing political activists and antifascists persecuted since the 1990s, as well as those of victims of police violence, journalists, etc.