Investigation into Anna Politkovskaya's murder extended till September

The period of investigation into the case on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the observer of the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta", has been prolonged till September. This was reported by Karen Nersisyan, the lawyer of Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, one of the defendants in the case.

"The case against my client has not yet been extracted into a separate proceeding. The date, when the Basmanny Court of Moscow will consider the motion to extend detention period for Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, filed by the investigator, has not been appointed yet," clarified the lawyer.

Sergey Khadjikurbanov, who earlier refused to testify, answers investigator's questions

There is an unexpected turning in the investigation into the case on the Anna Politkovskaya's murder, the "Kommersant" reports. Sergey Khadjikurbanov, one of the alleged organizers of the crime, ex-officer from the Moscow Department to Combat Organized Crimes, who earlier refused to testify, had changed his position, and, on May 18, he answered the investigator's questions.

Alexei Mikhalchik, the lawyer of Sergey Khadjikurbanov, refused to disclose the content of the qeustioning; however, he emphasized that his client repeatedly pleaded not guilty and insisted that he did not contacted Lom-Ali Gaitukaev prior to the crime and that with Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, ex-militiaman, he solved only financial issues.

The position of Sergey Khadjikurbanov was also influenced by listening to Lom-Ali Gaitukaev's talks about some order, in which, according to Alexei Mikhalchik, his client was not mentioned.

FSB operative wiretaps, recorded in 2006, attached to materials of criminal case

Materials of operative wiretaps of the FSB, which records suddenly appeared in five years after the Anna Politkovskaya's murder, are already attached to the case. This was reported by the "Izvestia" with reference to sources close to investigators.

"If there was information about preparation of crime, then why was it not prevented? The second question, also very important one, is why, even if the secret services failed to understand the records in due time, then why they continued keeping silence after the crime and, thus, hided information important for the investigators?" emphasized lawyer Anna Stavitskaya, who represented interests of the Anna Politkovskaya's family.

In their turn, defenders of Gaitukaev and Makhmudov do not intend to deny the facts of the talks, intercepted by the FSB; however, the lawyers intend to insist that were ordinary household conversations between family members about their own affairs, not related to the crime.