Brussels | September 10

GMA News - A short-list of three candidates will be drawn up by the European Parliament's foreign affairs and development committees Sept. 24, and the winner will be picked by the leaders of the assembly's political groups Oct. 25.

Anna Politkovskaya, the investigative journalist and Kremlin critic shot dead last year, was among the candidates for the European Union's human rights award for 2007, according to a list of nominees to be published Tuesday.

The Sakharov Prize, named after a former Soviet dissident, is awarded annually to a person or group judged to have made a particular achievement in the field of human rights, protecting minorities, defense of international cooperation or promotion of democracy and the rule of law.

Politkovskaya, who wrote scathingly of Russian President Vladimir Putin and reported of atrocities against civilians in war-scarred Chechnya, was gunned down in a contract-style killing Oct. 7, the 13th journalist killed in that manner since Putin took office in 2000.