JohnCenaFan28
02-19-2009, 05:31 PM
A Moscow jury has acquitted three men charged in the killing of journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya.
The not guilty verdicts were an embarrassing defeat for prosecutors in a trial compromised from the start by the absence of the suspected gunman and any alleged mastermind.
Defendants Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov and a former police officer, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, were accused of helping organise and arrange Politkovskaya's contract-style killing in 2006.
They were charged with murder and could have been imprisoned for life if convicted.
Politkovskaya's probes into atrocities in Chechnya and abuses by Russian authorities angered the Kremlin.
Her killing underscored the risks run by journalists and other critics of the government in Russia.
-Nova
The not guilty verdicts were an embarrassing defeat for prosecutors in a trial compromised from the start by the absence of the suspected gunman and any alleged mastermind.
Defendants Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov and a former police officer, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, were accused of helping organise and arrange Politkovskaya's contract-style killing in 2006.
They were charged with murder and could have been imprisoned for life if convicted.
Politkovskaya's probes into atrocities in Chechnya and abuses by Russian authorities angered the Kremlin.
Her killing underscored the risks run by journalists and other critics of the government in Russia.
-Nova