Two Chechens were charged with killing Klebnikov, allegedly on orders from a Chechen warlord, but they were acquitted and set free in 2006. The Supreme Court ordered their retrial but the process had been suspended since March after one of the defendants went missing.
On December 17, the Moscow City Court referred the case back to prosecutors to enable the department to ensure the attendance of the chief suspect, Kazbek Dukuzov.
The other defendant in the case, Musa Vakhayev has signed a guarantee not to leave the country. Another suspect, Fail Sadretdinov, was also cleared of murder charges in May 2006, but sentenced in January 2007 to nine years in prison for property fraud in a separate case relating to his work as a public notary.
A U.S. journalist of Russian descent, Klebnikov, 41, was the first editor of Forbes Russia launched in April 2004. He gained an international reputation for investigating murky business deals and corruption in the post-Soviet era. Klebnikov was killed when he left his office in central Moscow in July 2004.
