Prosecution Arguments Begin in Politkovskaya Trial

A guard sits, while relatives and press wait at a Moscow military court on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008....

A guard sits, while relatives and press wait at a Moscow military court on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008. The judge for the trial of three men accused in the killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya has refused to step aside after prosecutors accused him of bias. Politkovskaya's reporting on human rights abuses in Chechnya embarrassed the Kremlin. Her shooting death in 2006 caused international outrage. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)

(AP)

Russian prosecutors began arguments Wednesday against three people on trial in the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, describing the grisly 2006 crime in detail and showing the jury three bullets taken from her body.

None of the defendants, however, is charged with pulling the trigger or planning the murder — a fact Politkovskaya's family has said compromises the trial. Instead, the defendants are accused of helping set up the killing in the lobby of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006.

Politkovskaya's killing caused international outrage amid deteriorating ties between Russia and the West. Her critical reporting on Kremlin policy and human rights abuses in Chechnya had embarrassed the government, and sparked suspicion that her murder had been ordered by Russian authorities as revenge.

Judge Yevgeny Zubov on Wednesday refused prosecutors' motion for him to leave the case — a move that would have further disrupted the stop-start trial. The judge said the prosecution's claim that he was biased was unfounded, court spokesman Alexander Minchanovsky said.

Prosecutors then began making their case by giving details of the crime, which they reconstructed by studying the crime scene, photographs, security-camera footage and other evidence.

They said Politkovskaya was killed when returning home from a supermarket. When she entered the elevator and lifted her arm to push a button to her floor, prosecutor Vera Pashkovskaya said, the attacker raised a gun equipped with a silencer and shot her in the head.

The attacker then approached Politkovskaya and shot her three times — in the neck, chest and hip — before firing a fifth shot at her head from closer range, Pashkovskaya said.

Politkovskaya remained alive for 10 minutes after being shot, prosecutors said. They showed jurors three bullets they said were taken from her body, as well as photographs of the body in the elevator and color diagrams showing how investigators believe she was attacked.