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At the new trial in the “Khlebnikov case” there were missing defendants
The Moscow City Court yesterday suspended the murder case of the editor-in-chief of the Russian version of Forbes magazine, Paul Klebnikov, due to the defendant's failure to appear. The rehearing, already postponed on February 15 for a similar reason, was supposed to begin yesterday with the jury selection stage. However, on Wednesday Dukuzov failed to appear in court again. The defense stated that Dukuzov is in a hospital in Chechnya. The state prosecutor nevertheless made a petition for his arrest, which the judge supported, putting the absent defendant on the wanted list and choosing him in absentia as a preventive measure in the form of arrest. Meanwhile, another person involved in this scandalous case, notary Fail Sadretdinov , without waiting for the jury to be selected, again made a statement about the falsification of the case materials.The editor-in-chief of the Russian version of Forbes magazine, Paul Klebnikov, was killed in Moscow on July 9, 2004. He was shot from a car driving down the street as he was leaving the editorial building on Dokukina Street in the area of the Botanical Garden. The seriously wounded journalist died on the way to intensive care. Later, three people were arrested in connection with the case: natives of Chechnya Musa Vakhaev and Kazbek Dukuzov and Moscow notary Fail Sadretdinov.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, the Chechens were the direct perpetrators of the assassination attempt, and the notary, who had nothing to do with the murder of Klebnikov, at one time “ordered” one of his competitors from the same killers. According to investigators, the orderer of the assassination attempt on the journalist was the well-known former Chechen field commander and criminal “authority” Khozh-Akhmet Nukhaev. The latter, it is assumed, thus took revenge on Paul Klebnikov for publishing a book compromising him. However, it was not possible to detain Nukhaev, and he is still wanted.
In May 2006, a jury acquitted all three defendants, and they were released in the courtroom. However, in November, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation satisfied the cassation submission of the prosecutor's office, overturning the acquittal and sending the case for a new trial to the Moscow City Court in a different composition of the court. All this time, Dukuzov and Vakhaev remained free under recognizance not to leave. The third participant in the process - notary Sadretdinov - almost immediately after his acquittal, was again arrested in another case on charges of fraud and was recently sentenced to nine years in prison.
Neither Dukuzov nor Vakhaev appeared at the first hearing, which took place on February 15. Only Sadretdinov, who was escorted from prison, was present in the hall. Due to the lack of defendants, the trial was postponed for a month. During this time, they were supposed to be served subpoenas again.
At yesterday's hearing there were already two defendants. Musa Vakhaev kept Sadretdinov company. According to his lawyer, Vakhaev was ill in February and therefore was unable to attend the meeting. The defense also explained Dukuzov's absence as illness. According to Vakhaev’s relatives, voiced in the courtroom, Kazbek Dukuzov is in the hospital at his place of registration in Chechnya. In this regard, the defenders asked the court to postpone the consideration of the case for another week. However, the state prosecutor filed a petition for the arrest of Dukuzov, considering that he was thus hiding from justice. The judge agreed with the prosecutor, and therefore suspended the case until Dukuzov was delivered.
In addition, yesterday's meeting was marked by another revelation on the part of the defendant Sadretdinov. Even during the first trial, he constantly accused the prosecutor's office of falsifying the criminal case. This time he made a statement about the substitution of some investigative materials. “New case materials have appeared in the case that may be falsified,” his lawyer Ruslan Koblev quoted the notary as saying.
According to the lawyer, we are talking about several sheets in the 44th volume of the case. The notary, preparing for the meetings, drew attention to the pages sticking out from the volume. Upon closer examination, it turned out that they were not sewn in, as is supposed to be done with the materials of a criminal case, but were glued to the rest of the page cut out from it. Since the materials on this sheet directly concern him, Sadretdinov informed the judge about this. Now, according to Mr. Koblev, they will carefully study this document and, if the notary’s suspicions are confirmed, they will demand the initiation of a criminal case.