European Forum

Russian court orders new trial in Politovskaya murder case

On 25 June Russia's Supreme Court has overturned the acquittals of three defendants in the shooting of journalist and human rights writer Anna Politkovskaya, and ordered a retrial in a case that many observers regard as a key test of authorities' commitment to the rule of law.

The Supreme Court judge concluded on appeal that there were violations in the original case that ended in February, and ruled that "the sentence of the Moscow district military court is cancelled and the criminal case is sent for a new hearing in the same court." A Supreme Court spokesman said the case will be examined with new jurors. "We believe that the court [of review] made a fair decision in this case," prosecutor Vera Pashkovskaya said in welcoming a new chance to present the state's case. "The court, in its decision, took our arguments into account." Prosecutors had appealed the verdict in the original case, which ended with an acquittal for the Chechen brothers Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov and former Moscow police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov.

None of the three men had been suspected of having actually ‘pulled the trigger’ in the Politkovskaya. The Makhmudov brothers were cleared of acting as partners in crime in the murder, and Khadzhikurbanov was cleared of organising the crime. The case reportedly went before a military court because of the involvement of a fourth defendant -- former Federal Security Service (FSB) Colonel Pavel Ryaguzov -- who initially faced related charges but eventually was accused of abuse-of-office and extortion.

Politkovskaya, a journalist at the opposition paper "Novaya gazeta," was shot dead in her apartment in Moscow in October 2006. Her death is one of a number of high-profile killings of journalists and Kremlin critics that have remained unsolved in recent years. She often wrote of human rights abuses by the Russian military in Chechnya, which sparkled worldwide attention and astonishment in 2006.


Sources: NewsRu; Ria Novosti; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; Volkskrant