Trial of Anna Politkovskaya's murder case is again made open

The litigation on the case on the murder of the "Novaya Gazeta" correspondent Anna Politkovskaya will be held in the open regime. The board of jurymen has reiterated their statement that they do not object to run the trial in the open regime. The state prosecution has supported the jurymen's statement. As a result, Judge Zubov made a respective decision, the "New Gazeta" reports.

It was reported earlier that Judge Evgeniy Zubov made a decision to challenge the juryman Evgeniy Kolesov away from consideration of Anna Politkovskaya's murder. It was Kolesov who stated earlier to journalists that the decision to hear the case in the closed regime was made contrary to the will of the jurymen. Under the law, jurymen have no right to make comments on the course of the process to journalists. Therefore, Kolesov made self-disqualification, and the court satisfied his petition.

Earlier, Murad Musaev, advocate of one of the defendants - Dzhabrail Makhmudov, expressed his intention to lodge two petitions to the court: on making the process open and on preserving Evgeniy Kolesov as a juryman, since he "has demonstrated his adherence to principles", the "Gazeta.Ru" reports.

According to the advocate, the indictment states that the murder of Politkovskaya was ordered by a certain Russian politician. "At the stage of investigation, the public prosecutor had declared that he (the customer) was someone great and awful living abroad, but at the court we see in the indictment that the customer is not so great and awful - this is a politician living in the country," the RIA "Novosti" quotes Mr Musaev as saying.

He has noted that the indictment does not mention any particular person who could order to assassinate Politkovskaya; while the murder motive is treated as "personal reason of the order was in the exposing materials published by Politkovskaya."

The "Russian News Service" has just reported that apart from the challenge the juryman, the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia has challenged Judge Evgeniy Zubov, who had presided at the litigation.

The defence and representatives of the victims have petitioned against the challenge of the Judge. "We have no grounds to distrust the court," said Valery Chernikov, advocate of one of the defendants Pavel Ryaguzov. In the morning on November 26, the Judge should make a motivated decision about his challenge or refusal to self-disqualify.