19:17, 11 December 2012

The sufferers on the case of Politkovskaya’s murder ask the court to abrogate Pavliuchenkov’s plea bargain

The sufferers on the case of murder of ”Novaya Gazeta” observer Anna Politkovskaya are going to enter a motion of abrogation of defendant Dmitry Pavliuchenkov’s plea bargain in Moscow city court, lawyer Anna Stavitskaya reports.

“We will ask the court not to sanction the pretrial plea bargain”, RIA “Novosti” quotes Anna Stavitskaya referring to Russian Agency of Legal and Juridical Information.

Because of the pretrial agreement hearing of the case will be held as special procedure and the court will not investigate the evidence or interrogate witnesses. In this case the court cannot sentence the defendant to maximum penalty term.

The journalist’s relatives have no doubt about truthfulness of Pavliuchenkov’s evidence concerning other participants of the murder, however, they consider him one of the main organizers of the crime and think that he has not disclosed all the information he was aware of. “He depreciated his role and only passingly mentioned the paymaster’s mane”, the journalist’s son Ilia Politkovsky said.