It`s hard to keep up with events in the Anna Politovskaya-trial. (Politovskaya was a Russian investigative journalist and Kremlin critic, murdered in 2006.)
On Monday it was reported by Russian mainstream media (above) that the much delayed trial was to be heard in open court. This decision was changed yesterday, as Reporters Without Borders released this angry press release.
Earlier today, AP and a number of other media were reporting that the trial has been adjourned for ten days following fears of transparency and lack of fairness. In his justification, the trial judge said the jurors had asked him to close the trial to the public out of fear of repercussions. He also claimed the defence lawyers "were busy with other work", which they are denying is true.
As one might expect, this decision infuriated Politovskaya`s family and sparked allegations of a cover-up. AP published another story later today, stating the jurors never said they wanted the trial to be closed to the press. Nineteen out of twenty jurors signed a statement today asking the trial judge to reverse the decision, a juror told Echo of Moscow Radio station, according to AP. The juror is quoted:
"We asked only for the removal of television cameras, while we had no objection to the written media attending".This statement is again being contradicted by this news story from the Russian News and Information Agency Novosti, published earlier today.
Who knows what will happen next, but I don`t think Putin/Kadyrov will stand to benefit from the trial being held behind closed doors.
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