Accused appear in Russian court as Politkovskaya trial begins

• Men alleged to have aided journalist's murderer
• Shock ruling comes after another reporter targeted

Luke Harding in Moscow
The Guardian, Tuesday 18 November 2008

Former FSB (previously KGB) agent Pavel Ryaguzov (L) and Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, suspects in the murder case of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, sit in the defendents' cage in a Moscow court. Photograph: AFP/Getty images

The trial of three men allegedly involved in the murder of the campaigning Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya will be held in an open court, a judge ruled yesterday.

The unusual decision by the military court in Moscow stunned Politkovskaya's family and lawyers, and means that for the first time details of the much-criticised police investigation will be made public.

Prosecutors had wanted the case to be heard behind closed doors, but the evidence in Russia's most high-profile journalistic killing will now be laid out in a small, overcrowded Moscow courtroom.

Three of the men accused of acting as accomplices in her murder appeared there yesterday, inside a cage. They include two brothers from Chechnya - Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makmudov - and a former police officer, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov. A fourth defendant, Pavel Ryaguzov, an officer with Russia's FSB intelligence agency, sat next to them, although he appears in a related case.

Politkovskaya, a remorseless critic of the Kremlin, was shot dead two years ago outside her Moscow apartment block. Russian investigators have so far failed to catch her killer, who was seen on CCTV slipping into her building wearing a baseball cap. They have also been unable to identify who ordered her murder.

The three main defendants are accused of acting as accomplices to her murder, carrying out surveillance and providing technical help. Yesterday, however, all said they had nothing to do with the contract-style killing.

"We have no idea what happened," Dzhabrail Makmudov said, speaking to reporters allowed in during a chaotic 10-minute break in the proceedings. "We are hoping for a fair trial."

Former colleagues of Politkovskaya expressed surprise that the case would be heard in open court. Prosecutors had said that was impossible because of the amount of secret documents involved and the alleged involvement of Ryaguzov.

"This was pretty unexpected," Sergei Sokolov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, Politkovskaya's former newspaper, told the Guardian. "The prosecutor's office had insisted the trial should be closed. This means a political decision [to hold an open trial] has been taken."

The lawyer for Politkovskaya's family, Karinna Moskalenko, criticised the official investigation, saying it had failed to lead to the arrest of the main protagonists. Police have named the killer as another Makmudov brother - Rustam, 34 - but say he has fled Russia.

Politkovskaya, 48, won international acclaim for exposing the brutality of Russian forces and human rights abuses in Chechnya. She reserved her most vicious criticisms for Chechnya's pro-Moscow president, Ramzan Kadyrov, describing him as a "coward armed to the teeth and surrounded by bodyguards". Kadyrov denied having anything to do with her murder. "I don't kill women," he said.

Politkovskaya was also an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He initially ignored the murder; later, he grudgingly described her as a "rather sharp critic" of the Kremlin, "which is good".

The dangers of working as a journalist in Russia were starkly underscored on Friday, when a former colleague of Politkovskaya was assaulted near his home in the Moscow suburb of Khimki. Mikhail Beketov, a local newspaper editor, was found unconscious and covered in blood and was yesterday in a coma in hospital, where doctors had to amputate his leg.

"Mikhail is floating between life and death," said a friend, Lyudmila Fedotova. "He remains in a coma. The doctors say he is the most seriously ill patient in the intensive care unit. This is what happens when you oppose certain people."

Beketov had been a persistent opponent of the local administration, criticising its plans to cut down trees and move the bodies of wartime pilots to make way for a road. He had accused the authorities of harassing him.