Sergey Khadjikurbanov's lawyer finds reason to close case against his client within investigation into Anna Politkovskaya's murder

In the framework of the investigation into the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the observer of the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta", investigators conducted a confrontation of two defendants in the case Sergey Khadjikurbanov, and Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, ex-officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). Following the results of that investigatory action, Sergey Khadjikurbanov' lawyer intends to appeal to the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) with a motion to stop the criminal proceedings against his client.

According to a source familiar with the course of the investigation, the confrontation of Sergey Khadjikurbanov, the suspected leader of the grouping that committed the crime, and Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, accused of Anna Politkovskaya's murder, lasted for almost two hours, the "Interfax" reports.

Today, following the results of the confrontation, Alexei Mikhalchik, the lawyer of Sergey Khadjikurbanov, stated that he would seek to stop the criminal proceedings against his client.

"I cannot speak of details of the investigatory action, and I can only say that Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov actually accuses Sergey Khadjikurbanov of involvement in the murder and also speaks of his own involvement in the preparation. However, my client confirmed that he had not been involved in the case," the lawyer stated.

According to him, Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, who has reasons to defame Sergey Khadjikurbanov, spoke of "fantastic, contradictory and illogical facts," the RAPSI (Russian Agency of Legal and Judicial Information) reports.