Politkovskaya Defendents Go Back to Court
By Sean at 25 June, 2009, 8:33 am
It’s back to court for Pavel Ryaguzov, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov and brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov. Today, the Russian Supreme Court overturned their acquittal in the Anna Politkovskaya murder case. Reports the NY Times:
The court said the four men, who were accused of assisting the killer of Ms. Politkovskaya, should be tried on the same charges in the same military court in Moscow. In ordering the retrial, the court sided with the prosecution, which argued that there had been procedural violations by the judges and the defense during the original trial, a court spokesman, Pavel Odintsov, said. Other critics, however, including President Dmitri A. Medvedev, cited the prosecution’s errors and unfamiliarity with the jury system, which is relatively new in Russia, in the acquittal.
A statement issued by the Politkovskaya family on Novaya gazeta’s website said the following the about the Court’s ruling:
We recognize that the trial of every one of the accused was a fiasco. A fiasco from the standpoint of the evidence which was presented to the court.
But we think they are accessories in the case because we have yet to received an answer about what [they] were doing near the building at the time of the murder.
Therefore, the verdict, which the jury decided was just because there not enough evidence was presented.
We, as before, think that there is one possible option in the progress of the case–its transfer to a supplementary examination. We, as before, are sure that the case was not investigated and not transparent, and our main demand to the investigation which has yet to clarify who ordered the murder and the rest of the participants in the crime.
We only want the case to be investigated as it should be, and hold accountable all those persons responsible including the [murder's] client.
For an excellent article on the first trials proceedings, I highly recommend Keith Gessen’s ‘The Accused“ Hopefully this time the prosecution will present a better case.
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“For an excellent article on the first trials proceedings, I highly recommend Keith Gessen’s ‘The Accused“”
Highly recommended indeed. A good article.
On Keith Gessen in general: he’s a good writer, but his condescending attitude (and perhaps even dislike) toward Russia bothers me. Since I’ve been (wrongly) accused of the same, this may surprise some….
Paul Klebnikov: US Wants Justice In Journalist’s Killing In Russia
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE5666KS20090707
I’m encouraged here because 1) the issue of Klebnikov’s death is not be pushed aside or minimal-ized and 2)the reporting is clear and logical (ie not being compared/contrasted/confused with sensational-ized nonrelated deaths, like litvenenko’s)
If US Justice and Russia work together on this to deliver some resolution for the family- that would be a huge event.
The article amusingly doesn’t mention that Klebnikov was extremely pro-Putin. Or that the person widely believed to have had him killed is himself widely believed to be dead.
I’m far too lazy to do this, but it would be interesting to see if the WaPo articles that mention the Nukhaev connection to Klebnikov spell his name differently than they did when he wrote his Op-Ed pieces for them in the late 1990s. So as to frustrate search engines. Or maybe I’m being paranoid.