There is no need to seek more evidence in the murder trial of Russian journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, a military court ruled Friday to protests from the reporter's family, reported the Interfax news agency, according to dpa. Attorneys for Politkovskaya's family said they will appeal the decision to Russia's highest court. Sergei Sokolov, a former colleague of Politkovskaya, called the court's decision "embarassing." Prosecutors had also requested a new investigation into the case of four alleged accomplices to the murder. The four were freed in February due to a lack of evidence. Politkovskaya was gunned down in a contract-style killing in her Moscow apartment block on October 7, 2006. After opposing a new investigation, Judge Nikolai Tkatchuk set September 7 for jury selection. The new trial started on Wednesday. In the initial trial, prosecutors had accused two Chechen brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, of being accomplices and former police 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. The retrial comes after the Supreme Court agreed in June to an appeal from the state prosecutor's office to overturn the acquittal verdict, reached by a lower Moscow court. The Supreme Court also ordered the appointment of new judges and jurors. The recent murder of one of Politkovskaya's former associates, human rights activist, Natalya Estemirova, drew renewed public interest and speculation in the case. The two had worked closely in probing allegations of crimes against the civilian population of Chechnya. Rustam Makhmudov, a third Makhmudov brother, who was suspected of having carried out the murder, was on the run, while the identity of those who had ordered Politkovskaya's killing is still not known. In 2007, the state prosecutor announced that "foreign enemies of the state" from abroad had been behind the journalist's murder. However, rumours of the trail leading all the way to the state apparatus in Moscow, persisted.
