MOSCOW, October 18 (RAPSI) - Former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov convicted of killing Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya will file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) over prison conditions, RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday citing his lawyer Andrei Vikanov.

According to the attorney, Khadzhikurbanov is being held in highly heavy conditions; he is unreasonably restricted from correspondence and visits. Vikanov classified causes for sanctions as far-fetched.

On October 7, 2006, Politkovskaya, a crusading reporter with the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was shot dead at the age of 48 in the elevator of her central Moscow apartment building. The murder has been linked to her coverage of human rights abuses in Chechnya.

In June 2014, the Moscow City Court sentenced Khadzhikurbanov to 20 years in a maximum security penal colony for organizing the murder of Politkovskaya.

Another mastermind Lom-Ali Gaitukayev and killer Rustam Makhmudov were sentenced to life in prison.

Two other defendants, Dzhabrail Makhmudov and Ibragim Makhmudov, were convicted as accomplices to the crime. Dzhabrail drove Rustam to the scene of the crime, and Ibragim told him that the journalist was approaching her apartment building. Dzhabrail Makhmudov got a 14-year sentence. Ibragim Makhmudov was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

The court also fined them 5 million rubles ($79,200) payable to the late journalist’s children. In 2015, the Russian Supreme Court reduced the sentence for Dzhabrail Makhmudov to 13.5 years in prison.

One more suspect, former police officer Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov who was convicted of organizing the surveillance of the journalist was sentenced to 11 years in prison in a separate trial in December 2012.  He reached a plea bargain with investigators and testified against the other suspects in the case.