MOSCOW, August 5 (RIA Novosti) - The retrial of defendants in the 2006 murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya due to start Wednesday at a Moscow court was adjourned following an application from her family.
The Moscow Military District Court backed an application from lawyers representing the slain journalist's family who requested the case be returned to prosecutors. The application was supported by the prosecution, the defendants and defense lawyers with the court due to announce its ruling on August 7.
In February the court acquitted Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, brothers from Chechnya, and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov of involvement in the journalist's murder. However, in June Russia's Supreme Court overturned the acquittal and ordered a retrial.
The petition from Politkovskaya's family argued that the evidence available for the retrial was the same as during the first trial and that the case had not yet been solved.
If the court rules in favor of the family's application the case would be combined with that of the person accused of pulling the trigger, Rustam Makhmudov, who remains at large. A separate case has been opened against Makhmudov, whose brothers have already stood trial charged with involvement in the killing.
Karina Moskalenko, one of the lawyers representing Politkovskaya's relatives, earlier said "We want the real killer [in the dock], and we will succeed."
Novaya Gazeta reporter Politkovskaya, who gained international recognition for her reports of atrocities against civilians in the troubled Caucasus republic of Chechnya, was gunned down in an elevator in her Moscow apartment building in October 2006, in what police described as a contract killing.
