At Politkovskaya's case trial, prosecution moves a new version

At the process on Anna Politkovskaya's murder, a new version of the crime was presented: the order to kill the observer of the "Novaya Gazeta" was given to Lom-Ali Gaitukaev, uncle of Makhmudov brothers, back in summer of 2006. However, since he was convicted, he passed the order over to Sergey Hadzhikurbanov.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that today the hearing on Anna Politkovskaya's murder at the Moscow Regional Military Court began in a closed session. The court has ruled to make the prosecution's presentation closed, since it will refer to secret documents. However, the presentation of the victims' party will be open.

Currently, Gaitukaev is a witness in the case; he was not attracted to criminal liability. Lom-Ali Gaitukaev, who had been sentenced under another criminal case, spoke as a witness at Politkovskaya's murder trial and stated that he had learnt from inspectors that 2 million dollars were paid out for the journalist's murder.

Andrei Trepykhalin, advocate of one of the defendants, has reported that at the time indicated by the prosecution Hadzhikurbanov was serving his term, while the colony, where Gaitukaev was in custody, is in another city, as the "Interfax" reports.

Therefore, in the opinion of the advocate, no links can be traced with the brothers Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov, defendants in the case; and the cost of the order was not announced.

The correspondent of the "Echo Moskvy" Radio reports from the Moscow Regional Military Court that according to the defence, the criminal case files contain an indication to the customer of the murder. It was "a man dissatisfied with her accusatory articles and interviews." Also, a list of Anna Politkovskaya's articles is attached together with a list of the officials of several republics who were mentioned in her works, in particular, from Dagestan, Chechnya and Kabardino-Balkaria, as the "Gazeta.Ru" reports.

On Monday, the state prosecutors presented the board of jurymen with a detailed registry of telephone conversations held by Makhmudov brothers on October 7, 2006, when Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead. According to these documents, both brother, while staying near the house of the journalist, called up each other during the time interval when the murder was committed. The Makhmudov brothers could not recollect and explain what they had been doing on October 7, 2006, near Politkovskaya's house.