The Sheraton hotel employee, a Qatari national, previously alleged he had seen the suspects quite far from the tragedy site at the fatal time. As he said in the courtroom today, he was away from the hotel on a lunch break at the time, and did not see the Russians at all. Another man, who was substituting, could have spotted them, the witness supposes.
The defense appealed to the court to summon the man. The court turned the request down after debates that took an hour and a half, Mr. Levitov said to Novosti.
The court dismissed another request the defense was making for a third time running-to summon as witness Maxim Maximov, Russian consul in Doha.
The next hearings, with pleadings, have been appointed for May 25.
Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, prominent Chechen separatist leader, resident in Qatar, died in his bombed car, February 13.
The host country's secret services detained three Russians, on mission in Qatar, in the small hours February 19, on suspected assassination complicity. One of them, First Secretary of the Russian embassy, was promptly released due to diplomatic immunity, and returned to Moscow, March 24.
The Russians are certainly innocent, and must be released and allowed to return, Moscow repeatedly said. As Russia's Foreign Ministry pointed out in a statement, the men were closely complying with the host country's laws as they collected and processed information related to the anti-terror cause.
