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Russia has identified the killer of rights activist Natalya Estemirova and the assassin is now the target of an international search, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, according to foreign media reports.

Estemirova, a leading researcher for the Memorial human rights group in Chechnya, was abducted outside her home in Grozny, Chechnya's capital, on July 15, 2009, and found shot dead in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia later the same day. In February 2010 investigators said they had identified the suspect, but no arrests were made so far.

"The perpetrator of this murder -- the killer -- has been uncovered and definitively identified. He is on an international wanted list," Medvedev said at a summit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

"Now an investigation is under way to not only establish the killer, who is the target of a search, but also the one who ordered this terrible crime," he said.

Merkel, visiting Russia for talks on energy and the economy with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, raised the Estemirova issue at a meeting of German and Russian business leaders also attended by Medvedev. She described it as an issue of "great importance."

"In this respect it is important to continue the work to find the truth" about the assassination, Merkel said.