Court orders further probe into Russian killing

By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW – In a surprise ruling, Russia's Supreme Court ordered further investigation Thursday into the killing of an investigative journalist gunned down after harshly criticizing Vladimir Putin's Kremlin and human rights abuses in Chechnya.

The Supreme Court's military bench returned the case against three suspects accused of involvement in Anna Politkovskaya's brazen 2006 slaying to prosecutors, the court's press service said. It ordered them to merge that case with another investigation into the alleged gunman and the search for the mastermind behind the killing, a lawyer for one of the suspects said.

The decision reversed a ruling by a lower court, which had rejected a request by Politkovskaya's children for a single investigation into her killing. Her family has criticized the prosecution of the suspects in custody, who are accused only of helping set up the slaying. The journalist's family says justice will not be done until the gunman and the mastermind are caught and punished.

Thursday's ruling could increase the chances that Russian authorities will eventually determine who was behind Politkovskaya's murder — a crucial question in a country plagued by the killings of journalists and activists who criticize government authorities.

But it is unlikely to dispel persistent concern among relatives and rights activists about the government's willingness to conduct a complete, aggressive probe that activists suspect could lead back to people in power.

"Whether the Prosecutor General's office will use this new opportunity we cannot say," said Karinna Moskalenko, a prominent human rights lawyer who has represented Politkovskaya's relatives. "We can only hope."

Sergei Sokolov, a deputy editor at Politkovskaya's newspaper Novaya Gazeta, said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the Supreme Court ruling but pessimistic about the possibility that a mastermind will ever face trial.

"We have always wanted a full, wide investigation. I hope the investigative team will take advantage of this ruling," he told The Associated Press.

During her career, Politkovskaya sharply criticized Putin's Kremlin and the Kremlin-backed government of Chechnya. The southern Russian area was the site of two post-Soviet separatist wars and of widespread rights abuses that Politkovskaya focused much of her investigative reporting on.

Politkovskaya was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006 — a slaying that prompted international outrage and deepened tensions between Russia and the West.

Three men accused of helping set up the shooting were acquitted in February after a trial marred by the absence of the suspected gunman and virtual silence from prosecutors on the key issue of who might have been behind the killing.

The Supreme Court overturned the acquittal, and preliminary hearings in the men's retrial began last month.

In Thursday's ruling, the court's military branch ordered their case to be merged with the case against the suspected gunman, Rustam Makhmudov, and efforts to determine who was behind the contract-style killing, defense lawyer Murad Musayev said.

Prosecutors, who had backed the request for further investigation, suggested Thursday's ruling would mean the trial would be suspended, state-run RIA-Novosti reported. It quoted prosecutor Vera Pashkovskaya as saying a trial would likely not be held until Makhmudov, who authorities say has fled Russia, is in custody.

Pashkovskaya vowed that prosecutors would seek Makhmudov — who is a brother of two of the suspects acquitted in February — and try to determine who had Politkovskaya killed, the report said.