may be found online in the IFJ database. The third set of figures indicates the yearly number of verdicts reached in trials for the killing of journalists. With only three exceptions these have all been for homicide. Some cases have taken six to seven years to reach court (e.g. the killings of Dmitry Kholodov and Igor Domnikov) but most deaths that have resulted in prosecution take, on average, 12–24 months between the killing and the verdict. Rates of conviction are a different matter. When the death was not related to the journalist's work the conviction rate exceeds 90%. When the journalist's death was certainly or seems likely to have been related to his or her work, the rate of acquittals rise sharply to around half of the total. Most trials are still held before a judge, aided by two lay assessors. Trial by judge and jury, which is still very rare in Russia, generally offers a more rigorous testing of evidence, robust defence of the suspects, and a higher chance of the defendant being found not guilty (average acquittal rate of 20%). The Politkovskaya murder trial, which was held before a jury, ended in February 2009 with the acquittal of all those accused. If approximately three-quarters of journalists' murders over the past 16 years were not related to their investigations and publications However, the CJES considers that up to 70% of assaults, which annually run into the dozens, are work-related. Sometimes these are very serious. In November 2008, Mikhail Beketov, chief editor of the Khimkinskaya pravda, a paper in a Moscow suburb, was beaten so severely that although he survived, and his paper even resumed limited publication, by early 2010 he had still not regained the power of speech or independent movement. He died in 2013. Concern abroad Since Vladimir Putin first became prime minister in 1999 (president from 2000), the Russian authorities have been urged repeatedly by Western governments and international media bodies to do more to investigate the deaths of journalists. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders frequently criticized Russia for what it described as a failure to investigate these murders. The organization further claimed that many of the murdered journalists had been critical of Russian President Putin. Between March 2000 and July 2007, Reporters Without Borders claimed 21 journalists were murdered in Russia because of their work. Similar figures were produced by the committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).