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Russia closes Politkovskaya murder trial to public
AFP - Thursday, November 20
MOSCOW (AFP) - - The trial of four men charged over the 2006 murder of outspoken Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya will be held behind closed doors, a judge ruled Wednesday, infuriating her family and lawyers.
"This trial will continue as a closed trial," Judge Yevgeny Zubov, who is presiding over the case in a Moscow military court, said at a trial hearing in which the four men including an ex-secret service officer pleaded not guilty.
"This is for the security of the participants in the trial, that of their relatives and their loved ones," Zubov said, adding that jury members had said they were too scared to appear in the courtroom in front of journalists.
Zubov had said at the opening of the trial on Monday that it should be open.
Wednesday's ruling sparked heated scenes as lawyers for both Politkovskaya's family and two of the defendants argued there were no grounds for closing the trial and said the decision would harm Russia's image abroad.
"I am very disappointed," one of the lawyers for Politkovskaya's family, Karinna Moskalenko, who is also a leading human rights advocate, told AFP as court officials asked reporters to leave the building.
"I think this trial should have been open, not only because all trials should be, but because she was a public figure and the public should know the circumstances of her killing."
Politkovskaya, who was deeply critical of the Kremlin's actions in war-torn Chechnya, was shot dead outside her Moscow home on October 7, 2006 in an apparent contract killing.
The defendants are Chechen brothers Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov, accused of following Politkvoskaya, former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov and Pavel Ryaguzov, a former member of the Federal Security Service, the ex-KGB.
All four men entered not guilty pleas at the trial, a court spokesman said. The trial is being held in a military court because Ryaguzov was a lieutenant colonel with the Federal Security Service at the time of the crime.
Court spokesman Alexander Minchanovsky declined to give any other details of what was said at Wednesday's hearing after reporters left. Prosecutors said they would only speak to journalists following the end of the trial.
Politkovskaya's supporters criticised the proceedings even before they started, pointing out the actual alleged killer was still on the loose and whoever ordered the shooting had never been identified.
Outside the courtroom, the victim's son, Ilya Politkovsky, said: "Of course we do not like the closed trial.... It's wrong. There is nothing wrong with having journalists there." His sister Vera nodded in agreement.
A lawyer for one of the Chechen defendants also criticised the decision, alleging prosecutors who had pushed for a trial behind closed doors were seeking to hide information from the public.
"They wanted to close the trial from the beginning. They did not want the public to know," said Murad Musayev, who represents Dzhabrail Makhmudov.
The siblings are brothers of Rustam Makhmudov, said by investigators to be the actual killer. He has not been found and is believed to have fled Russia.
Politkovskaya, aged 48 when she died, was an award-winning writer of books and articles for Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper known for criticising the Kremlin.
"This is a shameful decision, a behind-the-scenes, secret decision," Dmitry Muratov, Politkovskaya's editor, told Echo of Moscow radio station.
Reporters Without Borders, a media freedom group based in Paris, called the ruling "totally incomprehensible and hugely disappointing."
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based media freedoms organisation, ranks Russia as the third deadliest country in the world for journalists after Iraq and Algeria, with 49 journalists killed since 1992.
Boris Tymoshenko from the Glasnost Defence Foundation in Moscow said: "There is material there about security service officers who are involved in the case. Clearly there's no desire for their activities to be known."
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Enlarge Photo
Suspects in the Anna Politkovskaya murder trial sit in the defendents' cage in a Moscow courtroom. Four men charged in connection with the killing of outspoken Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya entered not guilty pleas at their trial.
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