New trial in Anna Politkovskaya case

A NEW TRIAL has opened in Moscow of three men acquitted of the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006.

Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makh­mudov, two brothers from Chechnya and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov were tried and acquitted in February but the Russian Supreme Court ordered a retrial.

Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter on the independent weekly Novaya Gazeta who gained international recognition for her reports of atrocities against civilians in the wars in Chechnya, was shot in what police described as a contract killing.

Another journalist whose reporting of the Caucasus region annoyed the authorities was killed in July. Abdulmalik Akhmedilov, deputy editor of the daily Hakikat (The Truth) and chief editor of the political monthly Sogratl in the Russian Caucasus province of Dagestan, was shot in his car in the capital, Makhachkala.