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Russia Opens Hearing in Journalist's Death
Yahoo ^ | Tue Dec 6

Posted on 12/06/2005 11:25:13 PM PST by jb6

MOSCOW - A court opened a preliminary hearing Tuesday in the trial of three ethnic Chechens accused of killing U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov, one of the highest-profile murders in Russia in recent years.

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The proceedings took place behind closed doors, with the court deciding that Kazbek Dukuzov, Musa Vakhayev and Fail Sadretdinov will be tried by a jury, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing Dukuzov's lawyer, Ruslan Khasanov.

Klebnikov, the editor of Forbes magazine's Russian edition, was gunned down outside the magazine's Moscow offices on July 9, 2004.

Prosecutors allege that Dukuzov and Vakhayev killed Klebnikov on orders from another Chechen, Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev, who was the subject of a critical book by Klebnikov titled "Conversations with a Barbarian." Nukhayev, a former separatist minister in Russia's conflict-torn province of Chechnya, and two other Chechens are wanted in connection with the killing.

Some observers have suggested, however, that anger over Klebnikov's work for the magazine was most likely the motive for the killing, saying the U.S journalist may have made enemies while investigating corruption and the still-murky post-Soviet business world.

The trial will take place behind closed doors because some of the material in the case is secret, the court said last month.

The State Department urged a reversal of this decision to ensure a proper trial and stressed the importance of punishing the authors of the crime as well as those who carried it out.

"We strongly urge Russian judicial authorities to conduct this important trial openly, to ensure transparency," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said.

"We continue to urge that, in addition to those who pulled the trigger, those figures ultimately responsible for ordering the murder of Paul Klebnikov be found and brought to justice," he said in a statement released by the U.S Embassy.

Khasanov said Russian society in general and law enforcement authorities were biased against Chechens. "We would like that to end, and we hope that the trial will help deal with that," he said in remarks broadcast on Russia's NTV television.

On Tuesday, the court turned down a motion by Sadretdinov's lawyer, who asked to send the case back to prosecutors, arguing it was rife with distortions, ITAR-Tass reported.

Khasanov charged that "the criminal case doesn't contain a single piece of evidence proving the defendants' guilt," and said he would seek his client's full acquittal.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Russia
KEYWORDS: crime; forbes; journalist; klebnikov; probe; russia

1 posted on 12/06/2005 11:25:14 PM PST by jb6
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