Defendant in Politkovskaya's murder case declares innocence

At the trial in the case of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist of the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta", held at the Moscow City Court on April 14, Lom-Ali Gaitukaev, one of the defendants, categorically declared his innocence of the crime.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote about Chechnya and Northern Caucasus, was killed in Moscow on October 7, 2006. Four natives of Chechnya are accused of the journalist's murder: entrepreneur Lom-Ali Gaitukaev, his nephews Rustam, Ibragim and Djabrail Makhmudov, and ex-militiaman Sergey Khadjikurbanov. The defendants did not admit their guilt.

"In the detailed telephone conversations, the words 'to kill', 'to knock off' were about a person who owed money and not about the journalist," said Ali Gaitukaev at the court hearing held on April 14. He claims he never pronounced a word "journalist" in his phone conversations.