Politkovskaya murder: three cleared

12 April 2012

A Moscow jury has acquitted three men of involvement in the murder of a journalist whose shooting underlined the risks Kremlin critics face in Russia.

But the man accused of shooting Anna Politkovskaya in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on October 7 2006 remains at large and the crucial question of who ordered her killed remains unanswered.

The unanimous not-guilty verdicts ended the only trial to be held in the killing of the acclaimed investigative journalist, whose probing reports on atrocities in Chechnya and abuses by Russian authorities angered the government.

The three-month trial was marred from the start by the absence of the suspected gunman and any alleged mastermind behind the politically charged October 2006 killing.

Prosecutors vowed to appeal. The judge said the defendants were free to go, and they burst out of a courtroom cage and embraced elated relatives.

Ethnic Chechen brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov and a former Moscow police officer, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, were accused of helping organise and arrange Ms Politkovskaya's contract-style killing.

All three were charged with murder and could have been imprisoned for life if convicted.

Relatives and former colleagues of Ms Politkovskaya have said that regardless of the verdict, justice will not be served until the triggerman and the mastermind who had her killed are prosecuted.

Karinna Moskalenko, a prominent lawyer who represented Politkovskaya's family at the trial, said: "The defendants were accused of helping organise and arrange the attack, but the suspected gunman - a third Makhmudov brother, Rustam - is said to be hiding abroad, and prosecutors have not named anyone believed to have ordered Politkovskaya's killing.

"Everything is still ahead -- the investigators now have to start a proper investigation. The more time goes by, the harder it gets."

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