"Plasticine witness"

Report with the process of killing Anna Politkovskaya

About how the main witness of the prosecution of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya identified the killer

Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov is the main witness

“If you were going to the corridor, you won’t bring a witness yet, you’ll have time to smoke a hundred times,” says the bailiff mockingly, chubby, with soft white cheeks, in black beret, with a walkie -talkie in his hands, “and puts out the New Times from the Hall at 308, where meetings about the murder of the journalist“ New Newspapers "Anna Politkovskaya. The press is not complained here: when the meeting begins with a delay of an hour and a half (at 12.00 instead of 10.30), journalists are allowed after lawyers, jury, relatives of the participants in the process, some Japanese delegation and practical lawyers-that is, when there is nowhere to sit.

"Transfer the object"

There are five defendants in the Aquarium: three Makhmudov’s brothers-Jabrail, Ibrahim (they, according to the investigation, conducted surveillance of the journalist) and Rustam (he is considered the performer of the crime), their uncle Lom-Ali Gaitukaev and a former employee of the capital's RUBOP Sergey Khadzhikurbanov (the last two are held as the organizers). Dzhabrail - tall, slender - limping, nervously walks around the cage from corner to corner. In August of this year, he was wounded in a leg from firearms under unknown circumstances, when he was still under the subscription of a lower distance.

Rustam Makhmudov, over whom the worst accusation hangs, at the beginning of the process looks quite calm. He is low, tightly knocked down, smiles a lot. True, when Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov is brought* and on the white screen, shots made by cameras at home on Lesnaya Street appear on the entire wall, where the Politkovskaya lived and was killed, Mahmudov stands up and begins to tap nervously, and his hands are restlessly stuffing into his pockets.

Lom-Ali Gaitukaev (left) passes as the organizer of the murder, his nephew Rustam Makhmudov (right) as a performer

On the screen, shooting from the entrance camera No. 4. Black-and-white image, a piece of the sidewalk, a slightly captured passing part on which cars are traveling. "Witness, this person is familiar to you?" - Prosecutor Maria Semenenko points to the figure of a man in a dark jacket and a cap, which freezes on the screen. “Yes, this person looks like Rustam Makhmudov,” Pavlyuchenkov replies in a weak, quiet voice.

This is a haggard man with an exhausted face, he entered the hall, supported by two bailiffs, holding a black crutch in one hand. Among the public about this cruttle, they joke a lot: they say that at the last meeting he forgot him several times. Pavlyuchenkov has epilepsy, but there is talk that he is inclined to “exaggerate” the disease.

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"Then, in the V -Committee, I found out that we followed Khlebnikov"

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"Tell me, on what signs do you think that this person looks like Rustam Makhmudov?" - asks the prosecutor. “By figure, gait ...” Semenenko several times asks a witness to evaluate the growth of the killer - the lawyers of the defendants insist that the murderer on the record on the complex is not like Rustam.

“Do you know that this person, similar to Rustam Makhmudov, did on October 3, 5 and 7, 2006 in this place?” - continues the prosecutor. “It must be asked,” Pavlyuchenkov replies. “But I think that my employees handed him an object of observation.” "What is" convey the object of observation? " - “There are several ways. There is a visual gear - if I pointed with a finger at the person who needs to be followed. And the innocent, when the description of the machine is transmitted, some special signs, the address where it is parking, ”Pavlyuchenkov calmly answers, as if lecture on external observation.

The shadow of the past

Maria Semenenko nurses along the screen and asks questions to Pavlyuchenkova, as if lagging a primary school student, clearly pronouncing every letter. In a standard prosecutor’s suit - a blue skirt just above the knee, the white blouse is Semenenko like a harsh teacher from German cinema: black varnished studs, blond, almost white hair are tied on the back of the head, even bronze tanning, drawn eyebrows.

"Why did you think that what Gaitukaev asked you about will end in the murder?" She asks Pavlyuchenkova. “Because there was already such a situation,” he mutters. “I was asked about this Gaitukaev, Khadzhikurbanov and an unknown face, then in the Investigative Committee I found out that we followed Khlebnikov.”

The hall is reviving: Pavlyuchenkov for the first time in the process announced the involvement of the defendants in the current case in the murder of the editor -in -chief of the Russian version of the Forbes magazine Paly Khlebnikov in 2004, earlier he spoke about this only at interrogations. The lawyers of the defendants are raising, they begin to make noise. But Judge Pavel Melekhin stops the Board in a slightly chemane voice: "Dear witness, please say only that as for the present." Pavlyuchenkov is silent.

In anticipation of the new

After a long break, from 14.00 to 15.30, the lawyers of the defendants should ask Pavlyuchenkov questions. But the prosecutor again takes a witness into circulation. Murad Musaev, lawyer Dzhabrail Makhmudov, as a result, does not stand up-he jumps up and emotionally complains to the judge: the insidious prosecutor de specially set up everything so that the lawyers would not have time to ask their questions as before the meeting, but before the next meeting with this witness, a person is very sick, because something can be going on.

It is then that Pavlyuchenkov becomes bad: the bailiffs bring him out, finely trembling, from the hall-he stumbles at the door. The discussion begins - when to set the date of the next meeting. “Let's postpone it until September 31,” the judge says, wearyly. “September 31 does not exist, your honor,” they carefully answer from the hall. Assign in the end to the 24th.

“Pavlyuchenkov is a witness that we call“ plasticine, ”said Murad Musaev The New Times after the meeting. - He has changed his testimony more than once. At the first process, he said that with the corner of his ear he heard Khadzhikurbanov some work on a journalist there, and now he calls himself one of the organizers of the murder. This man speaks half -truths. "

In turn, the lawyer Anna Stavitskaya, representing the interests of the Politkovskaya family, told The New Times that she did not hear anything new from Pavlyuchenkov: “He said the same thing at the stage of the preliminary investigation.”

At one of the next meetings, previously unknown details of the Kolitkovskaya murder may be announced: the accusation will read out the testimony of the subordinate Pavlyuchenkov Oleg Golubovich, who is abroad, fearing for his life.

Photos: Evgeny Feldman