Free speech in the dock as Politkovskaya 'murder trio' freed

THREE men accused of helping to murder the Kremlin critic and journalist Anna Politkovskaya were acquitted by a Moscow court yesterday, leaving Russia's most politically charged killing in years still unsolved.

The prosecution said it would appeal, but the failure to secure a single conviction for the crime – the most high-profile in a spate of reporters' killings – raised questions about Russia's resolve to protect freedom of speech.

"We're glad," said Murad Musayev, the defence lawyer. "This is something that happens rarely in Russia. This is what I call justice."

"This failure amounts to a human rights crisis," said Miklos Haraszti, of the rights watchdog Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

After a four-month trial, the jury said brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov were not guilty of acting as accomplices in the murder, and cleared a former policeman, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, of organising the crime.

Dzhabrail was accused of driving his other brother, Rustam – who is currently on the run – to the building.

Prosecutors said Ibragim warned of Ms Politkovskaya's impending arrival with a phone call to Dzhabrail. Khadzhikurbanov had been charged with planning details of the attack, recruiting the Makhmudov brothers and acquiring a pistol.

The three defendants hugged their relatives after the judge released them from the cage in the court. Ibragim Makhmudov, from Russia's Muslim Chechnya region, shouted "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great".

Ms Politkovskaya, 48, who wrote scathing exposes of official corruption and rights abuses, was shot outside her flat on 7 October, 2006, after returning home from a supermarket.

The verdict was the culmination of a two-year search for the killers during which Politkovskaya's family and former colleagues had accused prosecutors of bungling their investigation and failing to track down the true culprits.

The man prosecutors suspect of pulling the trigger is on the run and they have never identified the person who they believe ordered Ms Politkovskaya's murder.

"We demand, we need the real murderer, and we will achieve this," Karina Moskalenko, a lawyer for the journalist's family, said yesterday.

She said the verdict would help the investigation.

"Any 'guilty' verdict could allow investigators to hide behind it and say the job is done," she said. "Now there is a clear need to make investigation effective, engage an investigation team, which could not be manipulated by anyone."

The Kremlin denied any involvement in Ms Politkovskaya's murder, saying it was an attempt to discredit Russia. Vladimir Putin, Russian president at the time of the murder and now its prime minister, said Russia was committed to solving the crime.

But western governments and rights groups demanded her killers be jailed. The crime fuelled accusations – denied by the Kremlin – that under Mr Putin democratic freedoms were eroded and opposition journalists feared for their lives. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Russia as the world's third most dangerous place for reporters, after Iraq and Algeria.

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ANALYSIS

THE Russian legal system has a terrible record. At one end, a Soviet-style presumption of guilty exists. A recent survey by international jurists concluded trials with one judge sitting without jury had a 99 per cent conviction rate.

At the other end, many high-profile cases remain unsolved or without successful prosecution. Sixteen journalists have been killed since 2000 in cases connected with their work – 15 of those cases remain unsolved, including Forbes magazine reporter Paul Klebnikov, an American citizen.

"It is very rare to see progress in these high-profile cases ... partly due to the poor quality of the judicial system, but also because the executive bends the judiciary, completely undermining it," said Maria Lipman, from the Carnegie Centre think tank in Moscow.