Friday, 5 December

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11.20 am    The State prosecutor again petitioned the court for the hearing to take place in camera. Journalists and relatives had to leave the courtroom but this time they were warned not to disperse since the following witness would be cross-examined in open court.

We waited. As we already knew, the uncle of the Makhmudov brothers, Lom-Ali Gaitukayev was being questioned. He had been brought to court in handcuffs from prison where he is serving a sentence for attempting to kill businessman Gennady Korban. Later it became known from a variety of sources that the court had specifically asked if he was

hired to organise the murder of Anna Politkovskaya Was he paid for doing so? Gaitukayev responded that two million US dollars were involved but “this money did not reach my nephews”. Those in court considered that the witness who was, in all respects, a “closed” individual was attempting to make a joke. He denied that he had been hired to organise the killing of the Novaya gazeta journalist.

12.50 pm    The trial was again opened to journalists and relatives of the accused. Sergei Sokolov, chief editor of Novaya gazeta, an open witness in every sense of the word, stood before the court for more than two hours. Everyone was gripped by his account of the investigation that Anna’s own colleagues have been conducting. He began by saying that their investigation had nothing in common with the work of the specialised law enforcement agencies.

“We can’t conduct searches or interrogations. We talk to people, that’s our main source of information. Then on the basis of those conversations we draw conclusions and make certain deductions,” the witness explained.

For a long period no one interrupted him. The range of information he presented about the accused was so extensive that the members of the jury experienced a great many different emotions (I was watching their faces). Some sat on the edge of their seat and others, on the contrary, evidently lost track of what Sokolov had to say. The attorneys for the accused clearly did not lose the thread for one second. For the remaining one and half hours they asked the witness various questions.

Repeatedly, they demanded that Sokolov to name his sources. Citing the Russian law on the media and the European Convention on Human Rights, he refused to do so. Time and again they attempted to establish whether Sokolov was connected with the law enforcement agencies and special services. He began talking openly about the work certain of the accused and other individuals did for the Federal Security Service. A row ensued but the proceedings were not closed to the public, and both press and jury heard all that the witness had to say.

Anna Politkovskaya was being followed by two groups, Sergei Sokolov said: those preparing to kill her and operatives of the security services. One of the Makhmudov brothers was an FSB agent and their uncle Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, who was cross-examined today, was an agent of the security services and in 2006 had discussed murdering Anna Politkovskaya.

After the witness had been cross-examined the attorneys for the Politkovskaya family and for the accused petitioned the court to provide them with a detailed list of the calls made from Anna Politkovskaya’s mobile phone. Such evidence was not included in the case materials.

The next hearing was scheduled for Tuesday, 9 December.