Translated material
All over again
The Moscow City Court is preparing for a new hearing of the “Khlebnikov case”
The Moscow City Court has received materials from the criminal case regarding the murder of the editor-in-chief of the Russian version of Forbes magazine, Paul Klebnikov, for re-examination. Last spring, the jury of the Moscow City Court acquitted three defendants in this case, but the prosecutor's office protested this decision, and the Supreme Court returned the case for a new trial.Now, according to the law, new hearings will be scheduled within a month. Two defendants in this case - Kazbek Dukuzov and Musa Vakhaev - are now at large. The third defendant, Moscow notary Fail Sadretdinov, remains in custody awaiting a verdict in another criminal case.
Paul Klebnikov was shot dead in Moscow on July 9, 2004, while leaving the editorial office from a passing car. Three people were arrested in connection with this case. According to investigators, Chechens Kazbek Dukuzov and Musa Vakhaev were the direct perpetrators of the assassination attempt. Notary Fail Sadretdinov had nothing to do with the murder of Khlebnikov, but, according to the prosecutor’s office, even earlier he “ordered” the same Chechens to assassinate businessman Alexei Pichugin, which, however, failed.
The “customer” of the journalist’s elimination, as the prosecutor’s office believes, was the well-known former Chechen field commander and criminal authority Khozh-Akhmet Nukhaev. Allegedly, he could thus take revenge on Khlebnikov for publishing a book without his permission based on an interview with Nukhaev, which caused the collapse of the latter’s political career.
However, last May, a jury found all three defendants not guilty and they were released in court. Sadretdinov, however, was arrested again a few days later on another case - on charges of fraud. According to investigators, he took advantage of his official position and forged a will, as a result of which the deceased’s apartment went not to her relatives, but to third parties. Yesterday, during the court debate, the prosecutor supporting the prosecution in this trial asked that Sadretdinova be sentenced to 14 years in a general regime colony.
During the entire trial in the apartment case, Sadretdinov himself openly accused the prosecutor’s office of falsification and pressure on witnesses, declaring that this whole story was the prosecutor’s office’s revenge for the failure in the “Khlebnikov case.” However, the notary was not present at the last court hearings. At first it was associated with a suicide attempt, which he committed at the end of December. Sadretdinov tried to hang himself, but his cellmates saved him. According to his lawyer Ruslan Koblev, this happened “due to hopelessness and violation of his rights in the judicial system.” After spending some time in the psychiatric ward of the pre-trial detention center hospital, the notary returned to the courtroom. But almost immediately he was again removed by the judge for violating the order, which, according to the notary’s defenders, was expressed “simply by filing inconvenient petitions.”