13:00, 25 June 2009

Supreme Court sends Anna Politkovskaya's murder case to reconsideration

Today, the Military Panel of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has decided to cancel the acquittal verdict passed this February to four figurants in the murder case of the journalist of the "Novaya Gazeta" Anna Politkovskaya and sent the case to a new consideration by other judges of the Moscow regional Military Court. The parties in the trial have disagreed with the decision.

The Panel of the Supreme Court has found that during the consideration of the case the requirements of the remedial legislation were broken. In particular, the defence brought the data about their clients and about the course of preliminary investigation to the knowledge of the jurymen.

Also, as reported by the "Gazeta.Ru", the Panel's decision runs that advocates, when addressing the jurymen, tried to clear out possible participation in Politkovskaya's murder of defendants' brother Rustam Makhmudov, which is inadmissible, since he is not a defendant in this case.