Moscow - A new trial into the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya opens in Moscow Wednesday, with the recent murder of her one-time associate having placed the spotlight firmly back on the case. The retrial comes after the Supreme Court agreed in June to an appeal from the state prosecutor's office to overturn the February 19 acquittal verdict, reached by a lower Moscow court.
That jury had agreed with defence claims of insufficient evidence tying the four suspects to the crime.
Politkovskaya, a Kremlin critic, was gunned down in a contract- style killing in her Moscow apartment block in October 2006.
Many people in Russia believe that the killing of the former Novaya Gazeta journalist was politically motivated due to her critical reporting of the human rights situation in Chechnya.
The abduction and murder of Politkovskaya's former colleague and human rights activist Natalya Estemirova in mid-July has again cast the spotlight on the journalist's murder.
The two had worked closely in probing allegations of crimes against the civilian population of Chechnya.
Estemirova's body was found by the roadside in neighbouring Ingushetia after she was abducted from a street in the volatile republic's capital Grozny on July 15. She had been shot, execution- style.
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has defended himself against accusations by the Russian rights group for which Estemirova had worked, Memorial, that he had ordered the activist's killing.
In the initial trial into Politkovskaya's murder, prosecutors had accused two Chechen brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov of being accomplices and formerpolice officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov of helping the killer get away.
The fourth defendant, Pavel Ryaguzov, was acquitted in a separate case. Ryaguzov, an agent of Russia's FSB security service, was accused of providing the killer with Politkovskaya's address.
Trial issues are to be clarified at Wednesday's hearing, according to Politkovskaya's family. No new evidence was expected in court.
