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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Accused appear in Russian court as Politkovskaya trial opens up |
| 2008-11-18 |
| The trial of three men allegedly involved in the murder of the campaigning Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya will be held in open court, a judge ruled yesterday. The unusual move, by the military court in Moscow, stunned Politkovskaya's family and lawyers, who had asked for the trial to be open to the public. Prosecutors wanted the case to be heard behind closed doors, and the ruling paves the way for details of the much-criticised investigation to be made public. The evidence in Russia's most high-profile journalistic killing will be laid out in a small, overcrowded Moscow courtroom. Three of the men accused of acting as accomplices in her murder appeared there yesterday, inside a cage. They include two brothers from Chechnya - Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makmudov - and a former police officer, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov. A fourth defendant, Pavel Ryaguzov, an officer with Russia's secret FSB intelligence agency, sat next to them, although he appears in a related case. Politkovskaya, a remorseless Kremlin critic, was shot dead two years ago outside her Moscow apartment block. Russian investigators have so far failed to catch her killer, who was seen on CCTV slipping into her building wearing a baseball cap. They have also been unable to identify who ordered her murder. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 HMMMMMM, HMMMMMMM, and ANNA LONGINOVA??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-11-18 00:17 |