Wednesday, 3 December

10.30 am Outside the courthouse Said Arsamirzayev, attorney for Ibragim Makhmudov, talked to journalists. He was still unsettled by the map of Moscow that the prosecution had shown to the jury the previous day. It indicated the location of mobile phone masts, the movements of the killer and of Anna Politkovskaya and where those now on trial had been at the time, according to the investigation. Photographs of Anna herself were attached to the map, as were those of Ibragim, Djabrail and their third brother Rustam. The case against Rustam Makhmudov [Anna Politkovskaya’s presumed murderer] forms part of a separate investigation.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Arsamirzayev told the journalists. He repeated the words of his colleagues that it would do the prosecution no harm to let the defence attorneys know what they would be showing at the trial. It would give them a chance to prepare. If not, the lawyer commented, they would have to teach the prosecutors a lesson or two.

“We can resort to our usual tricks as defence attorneys,” he stated, “but then the trial will go on and on ... .”

10.50 am TV cameramen were not filming that day in the courtroom and only two photographers were there. “Didn’t you get enough pictures yesterday?” attorneys for the accused asked them.

The Makhmudov parents were distressed by an article in that day’s Komsomolskaya pravda, saying that their children were friendly with professional killers. “You newspaper people,” said the mother Zalpa Makhmudova. “Anyone could find themselves in the place of my sons. That was only written to raise doubts about my boys.” Who among those present could have written such things, she asked. Pavel Ryaguzov’s lawyer, Valery Chernikov, supported her question. The author was not found and all complaints were directed at another correspondent from the same newspaper.

11.20 am The hearing began. The judge Yevgeny Zubov was discontented with the delay. This time his words were directed at the jury. “Once again let me ask you to leave home in good time. Our trial begins at 11 am. We should already be starting then ...”

State prosecutors Vera Pashkovskaya and Julia Safina told the court they would continue to present evidence to the jury of the guilt of the brothers Ibragim and Djabrail Makhmudov. Today they discussed the green model 4 Lada (VAZ 2104) which belonged to the brothers but was registered in someone else’s name. Four witnesses were cross-examined.

First was businessman Akhmed Isayev (“I deal in smoked fish”) who, in his own words, was a distant relation of the Makhmudovs. Three years ago Rustam Makhmudov asked him for a favour. Rustam owned a car but he did not have a Moscow resident’s permit: he asked Isayev to register the car in his name and then make it over to him, which he did.

The next witness was Masud Idrisov who sold the car. He also turned out to be distantly related to the Makhmudov brothers. Idrisov was then working as head of the transport department at the Moscow Industrial Bank. He sold cars that belonged to the bank but were no longer in use. Evidently Idrisov had some kind of arrangement with the bank. He did not explain to the court how he could sell off its property, even if it was no longer officially in use.

The prosecutors were interested in quite another matter. Which of the Makhmudov brothers came to pick up the car? Idrisov remembered that two people came: Akhmed Isayev and another person “who is not here today”. The man did not resemble Ibragim and Djabrail Makhmudov who were sitting in the dock: “he was more heavy set,” said Idrisov. However, the man who sold the car could not name one of his relations. “I don’t even know what they’re called,” he said, pointing to Ibragim and Djabrail. The prosecution read out the statement the witness had given earlier, during the investigation. From photographs that were shown to him then he recognised the second man who came for the car as Rustam Makhmudov.

The third witness was Nazhmuddin Shakhbanov who in spring 2007 towed the green Lada (VAZ 2104) to cooperative garage No 18. By then, the accused Makhmudov brothers testified, the car had broken down completely and needed a total overhaul. Shakhbanov stated that of the Makhmudov brothers he only saw Ibragim and Rustam.

12.10 pm Interval

In the lobby Murad Musayev, lawyer for Djabrail Makhmudov, answered questions from the press concerning the whereabouts of Rustam Makhmudov. The previous day during the midday break Musayev had informed journalists that Rustam Makhmudov could have returned to Russia six months ago to take part in the investigation if he had been given certain guarantees for his own safety. But no one, in Musayev’s words, considered offering him such guarantees. Today the defence lawyer announced that he was unable to get in touch with Rustam and had no idea where he was.

12.20 pm When the hearing resumed Musayev asked the judge to note that certain witnesses were basing their testimony merely on supposition and not fact.

A fourth witness was then called. Ovnam Akopyan rented the cooperative garage to which the Makhmudov brothers brought the car in spring 2007, where it was subsequently found by the law enforcement agencies. He did not give direct replies when questioned and the prosecution spent some time trying to find out how the car had come to be in his garage and who brought it there.

Akopyan said that someone rang him up but only when he was asked a third time did he say who it was. As it happened, his cousin was then held in the pre-trial detention centre with Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, the uncle of the Makhmudov brothers. It was Akopyan’s cousin who asked him to help the young men find a place to keep the broken car. Of the accused Akopyan recognised only Djabrail Makhmudov. They met once when Akopyan gave him the list of the parts needed to repair the car.

At this point Djabrail intervened and reminded Akopyan that they had met for quite another reason. According to the accused, Akopyan came to see him and handed him money for his cousin. Djabrail was to pass it on when he took a parcel to his uncle in the detention centre.

2.00 pm After an hour’s recess the prosecution presented expert evidence, compiled during the investigation, that proved the involvement of the brothers Makhmudov in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.

In particular, the prosecutors announced that the car confiscated in spring 2007 from Ibragim Makhmudov and the vehicle caught on film by the security camera at the VTB24 bank next to Lesnaya Street, was one and the same VAZ 2104. In support of this argument, continued the prosecutors, the cotton fibres found on the murder weapon were analogous to the fibres found on the seat of the car belonging to the Makhmudovs. “The fibres are analogous, that’s to say, identical. In short, one and the same,” prosecutor Julia Safina explained to the jury.

The word “identical” stirred indignation among the attorneys for the accused. “Analogous” and “identical” did not mean the same thing, they declared, and asked the prosecution not to confuse the two, especially since the word “identical” was not to be found in the case materials referring to this episode.

The prosecution asked the jury to note the luggage rack on top of the car and the missing windscreen wiper: the same distinguishing features, stressed the prosecutor, were established for the vehicle belonging to the Makhmudovs.

Then Novaya gazeta columnist Galina Murzalieva was called as a witness for the prosecution. For seven years she shared a room at work with Anna Politkovskaya. Murzalieva told the court what kind of person Anna was and recalled the things her colleague had written about: Chechnya, the Nord Ost theatre siege, the Beslan hostages ... Asked by the judge whether there had been any reaction to those articles, she told the court that they repeatedly led to criminal investigations.

“Would you say her publications were of an anti-Chechen character?” the judge asked.

“No,” replied Murzalieva.

Lawyers for the Politkovskaya family asked whether Anna’s articles referred to the leadership of the Chechen republic. Her colleague answered in the affirmative. She stressed that the president of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov had often become a target of criticism in Politkovskaya’s publications. Murzalieva had not heard of specific threats to Anna on his part. “However, in one article she described the hostility with which she was once met [in Kadyrov’s residence, ed.],” she told the court.

Had Anna recently received threats? The Novaya gazeta journalist replied that she knew about nothing of that kind. Returning to the subject of the Chechen authorities Murzalieva added that the day before Anna was murdered she had called Kadyrov “a coward, armed to the teeth” during a radio broadcast.

Defence for the accused Musayev then spoke. Turning to the brothers Makhmudov he asked whether their family had any relations with the president of the Chechen republic. They replied it had not.

3 pm Judge Zubov adjourned the trial until Thursday.