The United States said Wednesday it was "deeply saddened" about the killing of a prize-winning human rights activist in Russia's Caucasus region and called on Moscow to find and arrest those responsible.
"The United States is deeply saddened by reports of the abduction and murder of respected human rights activist Natalya Estemirova," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in a statement.
"We call upon the Russian government to bring those responsible to justice."
The body of Estemirova was found riddled with gunshot wounds and close to a highway in the region of Ingushetia that neighbors Chechnya, according to an investigative committee of Russian prosecutors.
Estemirova, believed to have been abducted hours earlier in the Chechen capital Grozny, worked for the leading Russian rights group Memorial which has exposed a string of abuses in the conflict-torn region.
Kelly described Estemirova as "uncompromising in her willingness to reveal the truth regardless of where that might lead.
"She was devoted to shining a light on human rights abuses, particularly in Chechnya," the spokesman said.
In 2007 Estemirova was awarded the Anna Politkovskaya prize -- named after the murdered journalist -- by the Nobel Women's Initiative, a group established by female Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
