Russia's Supreme Court orders new trial in killing of journalist
Last Updated: Thursday, June 25, 2009 | 4:14 PM ET
CBC News
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya is shown in a 2001 photo in Moscow. (Associated Press)Russia's Supreme Court overturned the acquittals of three men charged in the slaying of a controversial journalist and ordered a new trial Thursday in Moscow.
The court agreed with prosecutors, who had appealed the acquittals, that there had been a violation of procedural rules, said court spokesman Pavel Odintsov. Not guilty verdicts are often reversed by Russia's higher courts.
The defendants — former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov and two brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov — were found not guilty in February in the 2006 shooting death of Anna Politkovskaya in a Moscow elevator.
She was best known for her reports on human rights abuses in the rebellious, but still Russian-controlled, oil-rich region of Chechnya.
The acquittals, which critics said showed that reporters and Kremlin critics could be killed with impunity, were an embarrassment for the Russian government.
All three defendants were accused of playing minor roles in Politkovskaya's death and prosecutors never said who ordered the suspected contract killing. The suspected gunman, a third Makhmudov brother, remains at large.
"We're more interested in the mastermind and the killer," Sergei Sokolov, Politkovskaya's former editor, told Ekho Moskvy radio. "It's completely obvious that today's ruling was based on a political decision, not a procedural one. For the authorities, the most important thing was just to make sure someone went to prison."
Since 2000, at least 16 journalists have died under suspicious circumstances in Russia and many more have been assaulted or intimidated. Few of the crimes have been solved.
With files from The Associated Press
