Out of three suspects in the killing of Paul Khlebnikov, only Fail Sadretdinov was taken to court Thursday to hear his acquittal overturned.
Photo: ITAR-TASS
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Suspects of Slaying Khlebnikov to Face Court Again
// Secrets have been taken out of the deliberation room
The Supreme Court has overturned the acquittal of three suspects in the murder of Paul Khlebnikov, editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of Forbes. The judges said Thursday the jury had betrayed the secret of deliberation room, and one of the defendants even threatened a juror. The defense calls the decision political.
The Thursday session of the Supreme Court was held behind closed doors, just like sessions at the Moscow City Court. Four hours after the start of the session the audiece was let in to hear the verdict. The panel of judges ruled to invalidate the verdict of the jury as of May 6 at the Moscow City Court to acquit Kazbek Dukuzov, Musa Vakhaev and Fail Sadretdinov, and ordered a new trial at the same court but with another jury line-up. Only one of the suspects, Fail Sadretdinov who is in custody for other charges, was present at the session. Kazbek Dukuzov has gone to Chechnya for family reasons while Musa Vakhaev said he was ill.
“We were ready for it,” lawyer Ruslan Zakalyuzhny said leaving the court-room. “This is a purely political decision, and the case has long become politicized.”
Zakalyuzhny meant to say that the killing of the well-known U.S.-born journalist Paul Khlebnikov caused a real global uproar. Russian and U.S. presidents took the case under their personal control, and the court could not but overturn the acquittal.
“We won the case at the people’s court,” Ruslan Khaskhanov said. “Winning at the court of bureaucrats appears to be far more complicated.”
Lawyer Larisa Maslennikova, defending the Khlebnikov family says: “The court ruling was absolutely true and based on the law.”
Maslennikova mentioned arguments that she and prosecutor Ilya Erokhin cited at the session of the Supreme Court. She said that since the case was considered at the City Court by the jury, a cassation appeal can be filed only for violations of procedures in the trial. Therefore, the prosecutor and the lawyer pointed out to the court that the Procedural Criminal Law was violated even during the examination of witnesses. Larisa Maslennikova says that defense lawyers tried to put it through to the jury that testimony of the witnesses were acquired with the use of force or under pressure.
Lawyer Maslennikova also believes there was a lot of confusion with witnesses as well. A real forgery happened at court once when another person spoke instead of witness Kovalenko. The lawyer says that the chair of the trial Vladimir Usov did not check the man’s ID. However, when the real Kovalenko appeared in the court-room, the judge declined to interrogate him.
Larisa Maslennikova recounts that when witnesses declined to testify during the trial the chairperson did not explain to the jury that they “should not take this refusal into account when giving the verdict”, which was a violation. There were violations in the judge’s summing-up for the jury and in compiling the questionnaire as well. According to Maslennikova, the latter contained gross mistakes – the wrong time and place of murder (the document said that Khlebnikov was allegedly gunned down near Forbes’s Moscow editorial office).
The defense noted that the prosecutor tried to appeal to the opinion of a juror, Rybin. Shortly after the verdict was handed down Rybin sent a letter to the Prosecutor General’s Office saying that “the jury had shaped an opinion on the case long before discussing evidence.” That is to say, the jury were interested in the outcome of the trial and were not impartial. Ruslan Zakalyuzhny, lawyer for Fail Sadretdinov, says that the chairperson of the Supreme Court flatly dismissed any attempts to read out Rybin’s letter, claiming it was illegal because it could betray “secret of the deliberation room”. Yet, the prosecutor and lawyer Maslennikova pointed out to the fact that if a juror sent the letter, there were violations in announcing the verdict.
Moreover, participants of the trial say that the secret of the deliberation room was violated while discussing the verdict. The jury foreman left the room to speak to the judge while stand-by jurors entered the room. A juror claims that the accused Dukuzov threatened her, saying that they would be people waiting for her by her house. The Supreme Court announced only the operative party of the verdict while the full text and reasons for the decisions will be available in a few days.
Igor Korotkov and Ruslan Khaskhanov, lawyers for Dukuzov and Vakhaev, said Thursday they would not appeal the decision of the Supreme Court. On the contrary, Fail Sadretdinov’s lawyers said they “do not respect this decision” and would appeal to the presidium of the Supreme Court on Friday.
Meanwhile, Elena Liptser, a defense lawyer, sent an application to the Constitution Court, asking to consider whether articles enabling the invalidation of a jury verdict complies with the Russian Constitution. Lipser believes that these articles are “too vague”, which allows the victims violate the law while filing a appeal for the acquittal.
Alexey Sokovnin
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 10, 2006
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