From the “Don’t Drink The Tea” files of foreign journalism, noted Beslan massacre and Chechnya reporter Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated outside of her apartment today.

As glee will undoubtedly pour out of Moscow’s state run media in the coming day or so, the only thing we can be certain of is that Russian journalists don’t have Junior’s uncanny ability to look into a man’s eyes and see his soul. Or maybe some of them can and reach a different result.

Either way, “prominent” and “outspoken critic” often translates to “recently” and “murdered” in Russian. No need to launch some big investigation to find a murder weapon though:

MOSCOW. Oct 7 (Interfax) – Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist known for her criticism of Russia’s policy on Chechnya, was found dead late on Saturday afternoon in the elevator of the building where she lived.

Politkovskaya’s body was found with a bullet wound by one of her neighbors, a source in law enforcement told Interfax.

Police found a handgun and four cartridge cases in the elevator.

Nice work detective. Every case should be so easy.

A short two years after Putin ordered Politkovskaya poisoned, it looks like he finally followed through on felling the human rights reporter.

You’ve had a busy day young man. Somebody’s going to sleep good tonight.

Congratulations Pooty-Poot. You killed an old lady.

More on the previous attempts on her life:

In 2001, Politkovskaya fled to Vienna for several after receiving e-mail threats alleging that a Russian police officer she had accused of committing atrocities against civilians, was intent on revenge. The officer, Sergei Lapin, was detained in 2002 based on her allegations but the case against him was closed the following year.

Politkovskaya began reporting on Chechnya in 1999, during Russia’s second campaign there, and concentrated less on military engagements than on the human side of the war. She wrote long, empathic stories about the Chechen inhabitants of refugee camps and Russian soldiers she found in hospitals – until she was banned from visiting those hospitals, Panfilov said.

More than any other Russian reporter, Politkovskaya has chronicled killings, tortures and beatings of civilians by Russian servicemen – reports that put her on a collision course with the authorities.

“There are journalists who have this fate hanging over them,” Panfilov said. “I always thought something would happen to Anya, first of all because of Chechnya.”

Politkovskaya fell seriously ill with symptoms of food poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia during the school hostage crisis in Beslan in 2004, where many thought she was heading to mediated the crisis. Her colleagues had suggested the incident was an attempt on her life.

She was one of the few people to have entered the Moscow theater where Chechen militants took hundreds of hostages in October 2002 and try to negotiate with the rebels.

Politkovskaya’s death was the highest profile killing of a journalist in Russia since the July 2004 slaying of Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine.

Klebnikov was also shot four times. Must be standard procedure by now.

Naturally, the BBC experiences this untimely Lapham moment.

As of 11:21 AM CST, Pravda has yet to mention it.

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