Okushko: lawyer Murad Musaev is squeezed out of Politkovskaya's murder trial

A negative information environment is deliberately created around the lawyer Murad Musaev in order to put pressure on him and discredit him in the eyes of the jurors at the trials, in which he is involved, in particular, in the trial on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the lawyer Tatiana Okushko believes. Other experts treat the latter trial as a politicized one.

Let us remind you that the process of electing the jurors for Anna Politkovskaya's murder case by the Moscow City Court was completed on January 14. The day before, the apartment of the lawyer Murad Musaev, a member of the Bar "Musaev and Partners", a native of Chechnya, who represents the interests of the defendants at the trial, was searched.

According to Tatiana Okushko, who is representing the interests of Lom-Ali Gaitukaev, during the jury selection Musaev asked the court to provide him with a copy of case files, but the court denied his request and offered him to solve the problem by himself.

Ms Okushko believes that the news about the links of the rally against xenophobia that is planned by Caucasian public organizations in Moscow with the name of Musaev is spread with the same purpose – to "squeeze" Musaev out of the trial.

The trial of the murder case of Anna Politkovskaya affects the political life throughout the country; and the search of Murad Musaev's home on the eve of jury selection could be related to the trial itself, said Oleg Orlov, the Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial". He raised the issue of the legitimacy of the trial as such, and believes that the investigation is deliberately getting away from the search of the real customer of the murder.