Board of jurymen on Anna Politkovskaya's murder case formed

Today, the Moscow Regional Military Court has formed the board of jurymen on the murder case of the observer of the "Novaya Gazeta" newspaper Anna Politkovskaya; the consideration of the case began on November 17. In total, 12 main and 8 reserve jurymen have been chosen.

The consideration of the case on the merits is appointed for tomorrow, November 19.

Two thousand candidates were invited to run for jurymen, and over 50 persons responded to invitations, the "Novaya Gazeta" writes.

Yesterday, on November 17, the court denied the petition of the state prosecution to have the case considered in the closed regime. The prosecutors asked to have a closed trial, since the case files contain classified (secret) documents. Meanwhile, the suffered party - the family of the murdered journalist - and the defence insisted on an open trial.

Let us note here that the defendants in the case - Sergey Hadzhikurbanov, and Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov - have refused to plead guilty, the "Interfax" reports.

We remind you that in the court Politkovskaya's children - Ilya and Vera - lodged a suit against the defendants on moral compensation in the sum of 10 million roubles.

According to Karina Moskalenko, advocate for Politkovskaya's family, inspectors have rejected all the victims' petitions. Ms Moskalenko mentioned the request to interrogate Chechen President among these petitions. In the lawyer's opinion, Ramzan Kadyrov's summon to the trial as a witness could allow analyzing all the versions and, probably, reveal the customer of the crime.

"Quite a lot of persons have pointed to Kadyrov as a person who threatened Politkovskaya," the portal GAZETA GZT.RU quotes the lawyer. "Kadyrov himself said that he knows the persons who had ordered Politkovskaya's murder."