That was how the liberal Novaya Gazeta, Anna Politkovskaya’s old paper and one that recently lost another of its journalists to a contract killing, summed up today’s “not guilty” verdict in the trial of Chechen brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov as well as Moscow ex-cop, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, for the murder of opposition journalist.
Yet, at the same time, the verdict gives a sigh of relief. As the LA Times’s Megan Stack had noted earlier today,
“If the verdict is guilty, nobody will be looking for the real murderers,” said Murad Musayev, lawyer for Dzhabrail Makhmudov, the younger Chechen brother. “They will mark the Anna Politkovskaya case closed. I’m sure that’s what they’re trying to do.”
At least now it will be harder to do that, and the editor of Novaya Gazeta, Sergei Sokolov, pledged to continue with their own internal investigation.
He accused the authorities and secret services in colluding to actively sabotage the investigation “as soon as it became known that members of the law and order services and their countless secret agents were drawn into this whole story”.
The trial was very flawed. For example, Luke Harding in the Guardian writes that “during the investigation vital pieces of evidence disappeared, including mobile phone SIM cards, computer discs and a photo of Rustam Makhmudov, who apparently fled to western Europe using a false passport. Crucial video footage showing the assassin entering Politkovskaya’s apartment block went missing”.
At the same time, Sokolov acknowledges the difficulties involved, especially considering that “nobody in Russia is paying much attention. The Politkovskaya case drew a bigger reaction in the West than in Russia”.
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