Translated material
Chance of indictment
The Supreme Court overturned the acquittal in the murder of Paul Klebnikov
Those acquitted in the murder of American journalist and editor-in-chief of Russian Forbes Paul Klebnikov will again become accused. Yesterday, the Supreme Court (SC) overturned the acquittal rendered by the Moscow City Court with the participation of a jury and sent the case to the same court for a new trial. The Prosecutor General's Office and the victims (relatives of the murdered journalist) sent to the Supreme Court a whole list of procedural violations that were committed during the first trial. Apparently, some of them were considered legitimate, but which ones are still unknown, since the Supreme Court did not give reasons for its decision, announcing only the operative part of it on the cancellation of the acquittal.Now the Prosecutor General's Office has a second chance to prove its version of the murder of Paul Klebnikov, which is based on the so-called “Chechen trace.” The journalist was killed on July 9, 2004 in Moscow, at the exit from the editorial building. The Forbes office is located on a quiet street near the Botanical Garden metro station. The killer, who was in the car, caught up with the journalist walking towards the metro and shot him with a pistol nine times. The wounded American was picked up by an ambulance, but doctors were unable to save him. Paul Klebnikov died when the doctors taking him to intensive care got stuck in the hospital elevator.
The Prosecutor General's Office almost immediately stated that what happened was revenge on the journalist on the part of the famous Chechen field commander Khozh-Akhmet Nukhaev. Khlebnikov at one time used an interview with him as the basis for his book “Conversation with a Barbarian” and published it without the consent of its main character. In this book, Nukhaev, who claimed to be an emissary of “independent Ichkeria,” appeared as an obvious bandit and terrorist. As a matter of fact, after this his “political career” ended.
The murder of Klebnikov caused a serious political resonance. American authorities at the highest level have many times demanded from Moscow a serious investigation and punishment of those responsible. A month ago, speaking in Dresden at the St. Petersburg Dialogue forum, Vladimir Putin noted that journalists are dying in many countries, and “it’s unfortunate that this is happening in our country.” Paul Klebnikov, the president emphasized, was killed after the publication of “Conversation with a Barbarian.”
The investigation into the case was completed on August 31 last year. The Prosecutor General's Office officially announced that Klebnikov was killed by members of a criminal community that was created in Moscow in 2002 for the purpose of committing extortion and murder for hire. Of those whom the investigation called participants, only three were detained. Chechens Kazbek Dukuzov and Musa Vakhaev, according to the prosecution, were the executors of Nukhaev’s order. Another defendant, Moscow notary Fail Sadretdinov, was involved in another episode of the case. Back in 2003, he allegedly ordered Dukuzov and Vakhaev to hire another businessman - a certain Alexey Pichugin. Several more people, including Nukhaev himself, are still on the wanted list.
The Moscow City Court began considering the case in December 2005. At the request of the defendants, a jury was formed. However, they were never able to start considering the case. Several meetings took place in disputes between the lawyers and the presiding judge Marina Komarova, who reproached each other for violating the law. And then Ms. Komarova went to the hospital, and the case was transferred to another judge - Vladimir Usov. A new jury was also formed. And in February of this year the process finally began.
To protect the jury from “external influence,” Mr. Usov forbade all participants in the trial to communicate with the press. For almost three months no information was received from the courtroom. And in May, the jury returned a not guilty verdict. At the same time, the Chechens were acquitted by a majority of votes, and the notary was acquitted unanimously. A day later, based on the verdict, the judge pronounced an acquittal.
The state prosecution announced its intention to appeal the acquittal immediately after the verdict. Representatives of the Khlebnikov family initially accepted the verdict, but then changed their decision and also filed a complaint with the Supreme Court.
Yesterday's meeting of the Supreme Council, which lasted more than five hours, was also held behind closed doors. The prosecutor's claims were based on a sensational statement by one of the jurors, Alexei Rybin. Almost three months after the acquittal, he allegedly unexpectedly came to the Prosecutor General's Office. On eight sheets of paper, the conscientious juror outlined his “civil position” and spoke about the alleged violations committed during the trial . The document, signed by Mr. Rybin, mentions a pair of jurors who, in his opinion, exerted pressure on other jurors. From his words, the prosecutor's office concluded that even the holy of holies of legal proceedings - the secret of the deliberation room - had been violated.
The prosecutor's protest totals 16 points of various claims. Among them there are those who, according to the lawyers of the acquitted, can hardly be called anything other than accusing Judge Usov of falsifying the minutes of the meeting. Two lawyers representing the Khlebnikov family also wrote in their cassation complaints about the incorrect reflection of what was happening at the trial in the protocol of the court session.
After several hours of proceedings behind closed doors, the public was finally allowed into the courtroom and the decision of a higher court was announced to them: “The verdict of the Moscow City Court, based on the verdict of the jury, dated May 6, 2006 in relation to Dukuzov Kazbek, Vakhaev Musa and Sadretdinov Fail, the case send for a new trial to the Moscow City Court with a different composition of judges.” What served as the reason for canceling the sentence was not stated in the operative part read out by the judge yesterday; the participants in the meeting will learn about this later, having received a written version of the document.
Naturally, representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office and the injured party were satisfied with this decision. Lawyers for Dukuzov and Vakhaev, in turn, admitted that they did not expect anything different, but were quite ready to start all over again. And only Mr. Sadretdinov expressed a desire to appeal the decision of the Supreme Court to a higher authority - in a supervisory procedure in the presidium of this court. “Sadretdinov, unlike the other defendants, was acquitted by all 12 jurors unanimously. And we will seek an acquittal,” said Sadretdinov’s lawyer Ruslan Koblev.
The notary, who will now have to sit in the dock again, did not stop there. Together with two other entrepreneurs, whose acquittals by jury were overturned more than once, Mr. Sadretdinov appealed to the Constitutional Court. In their complaint, they ask that the provisions of the law allowing the overturning of acquittals be declared unconstitutional. “The grounds for overturning such sentences are so vague that they allow almost every acquittal by jury to be overturned,” said lawyer Anna Stavitskaya, who represented the interests of businessmen in court. “This does not correspond to the principles of equality of all before the law and the court, adversarial character of the parties, as well as the principle of the presumption of innocence.”