![Anna Politkovskaya Anna Politkovskaya](/images/stories/CCWatch/annapolitkovskaya.jpg)
Anna Politkovskaya
His reversal sparked complaints from lawyers for Politkovskaya’s family
They said there were no grounds to close the trial and to reverse course would damage
Politkovskaya’s son, Ilya, who had been critical of the investigation as targeting only underlings, not those who ordered and organized the killing, said he was dismayed by the ruling.
“Of course we do not like the closed trial,” he told the BBC. “There is nothing wrong with having journalists there. A lawyer for the family, Karinna Moskalenko, added, “I think this trial should have been open, not only because all trials should be, but because she was a public figure and the public should know the circumstances of her killing.”
The defendants’ lawyers had also asked that the trial be open.
Three Accused Plead Not Guilty
Three men accused as accomplices in Politkovskaya’s murder appeared in court Monday: Chechen brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makmudov and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov are accused of carrying out surveillance and providing technical help. All said at the hearing that they had nothing to do with the murder and have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Police said that another Makmudov brother, Rustam, is the killer, but that he has left
Politkovskaya’s son earlier told the BBC, “The people in the dock are just the underdogs… There were a lot more people involved in this killing, not just the three who appeared in court.”
Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of
Politkovskaya’s 2006 killing is one of nearly 50 contract-style murders of journalists in
Beketov, who had written about corruption and campaigned against cutting down a nearby forest for a highway, had received death threats before.
“He told us about a week before he was attacked that he had been informed that an order to kill him had been taken out,” close friend Lyudmila Fedotova told Reuters. Other friends said his car had been burned earlier this year.
--Beth Kampschror