Mr. Kucherena said that on October 25, the court ruled to resume the trial. According to him, the decision was because of changes in the Criminal Procedure Code. "A judge and two people's assessors heard Tamara Rokhlina's case earlier," he said. "However, under the new code, the case must be considered by a judge, three professional judges, or a jury."
He said that Tamara Rokhlina intended to file an appeal that three professional judges consider her case.
On November 16, 2000, she was given an eight year sentence and the court found her guilty of killing her husband "on the ground of inimical relations."
A higher court, the Moscow Regional Court, lowered the sentence to four years. In the summer of 2001, the Russian Supreme Court granted her appeal and overturned the guilty verdict. The Supreme Court sent Rokhlina's case to a new composition of the Narofominsk Court for a retrial. Ms. Rokhlina was released from custody.
The retrial began on December 3, 2001, however the trial was suspended on November 15, 2002 for a medical examination of Tamara Rokhlina.
Mr. Kucherena said the examination revealed that at the moment of the murder, Ms. Rokhlina was of sound mind.
In October 2003, Ms. Rokhlina was hospitalized for poisoning, her lawyer said she took 40-50 tablets of a certain medicine.
The defendant maintains her innocence and claims that three masked strangers killed her husband.
General Lev Rokhlin, head of the Movement in Support of the Army, was shot in the head on July 2, 1998 at his datcha.
