MOSCOW — Russian authorities yesterday hinted that Boris Berezovsky, a London-based critic of President Putin, was behind the murder of an investigative journalist in Moscow.

Anna Politkovskaya, who was investigating human rights abuses by the Russians in Chechnya, was shot in the elevator of her apartment block on October 7 last year. Her death — the 13th murder of a journalist in Russia under Mr. Putin’s rule — provoked outrage.

Russia’s prosecutor-general announced yesterday that 10 serving and retired police and security service officers had been arrested in connection with the death but insisted that they were acting under someone else’s orders.

When asked by Russian journalists if he believed that Mr. Berezovsky, a former oil tycoon, was behind the murder, he smiled and said: “Our investigation has led us to conclude that only people living abroad could be interested in killing Politkovskaya.

“Forces interested in destabilizing the country, in stoking crisis, in a return to the old system where money and oligarchs ruled, in discrediting national leadership, provoking external pressure on the country, could be interested in this crime. Anna Politkovskaya knew who ordered her killing. She met him more than once.”

The thinly veiled accusation will raise the pressure on Mr. Berezovsky, who met Politkovskaya several times and has made no secret of his wish to overthrow Mr. Putin.

It will also worsen relations with London, which expelled four Russian diplomats after Moscow refused to extradite the chief suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent, in London last year.

Mr. Chaika said yesterday that the murder was carried out by a Chechen who led an organized crime gang in Moscow that specialized in contract killings.