MOSCOW, July 22 (RIA Novosti) - A new trial of defendants in the 2006 murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya will begin on August 5, a lawyer acting for the victim's family said on Wednesday.
The Moscow Military District Court acquitted in February Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, brothers from Chechnya, and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov of involvement in the journalist's murder. However, Russia's Supreme Court overturned last month the not-guilty verdicts and ordered a retrial.
"Preliminary hearings in the criminal case have been scheduled for August," Anna Stavitskaya said.
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.
